Barry Switzer Research Papers

Jaxon Culwell

Ms. Luman

Barry Switzer

11-16-2016

Barry Switzer Barry Switzer is one of the most successful college football coaches of all time. Switzer won multiple national championships in his era in Oklahoma. After his legacy in Oklahoma, he went on to coach the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL. In the NFL, Switzer won only one Super Bowl. With all the great success in both the NCAA and the NFL, this makes Barry Switzer one of the winningest coaches in football history. Barry Layne Switzer was born October 5, 1937 in Crossett, Arkansas to parents Frank and Mary Switzer. Barry and his younger brother Donnie grew up in rural Ashley County Arkansas near the Louisiana border. When Barry was in fifth grade his mother moved him and his brother

The relationship between his mother and father declined due to the continued bootlegging business his dad ran and his unfaithfulness to Barry’s mother. Switzer wrote in his autobiography, Bootleggers Boy, “She (Barry’s mother) read all the time, lived in a world of fiction. I didn’t know it, but she had started taking barbiturates by prescription and she was drinkiong. She would kind of glide through the day with a glaze around her.” Switzer had a tough time making friend at school because of his dad’s reputation. Many parents in the community didn’t want their children associating with a “Bootleggers Boy”. Often, in order to go on a date with a girl in the town, Barry would have a friend ask the girl’s parents for him. Switzer’s father was arrested his senior year of high school for his bootlegging antics and sentenced to prison in the Arkansas

The scholarship included room and board, books, tuition and fees and he was given fifteen dollars a month for laundry. Barry struggled at college his freshman year because he was homesick and not interested in his classes. Things started improving his sophomore year at the university as Switzer began to take his studies more seriously and moved into the new athletic dorms. Switzer was red shirted his sophomore year to help him adjust to college life and athletics at the university level. Frank Broyles was named the head coach at the University of Arkansas in 1958 and things began to improve for Switzer. They did lose their first six games adjusting to Broyles’ new offense but ended the season with four straight wins with Switzer at center. Going into Switzer’s senior year, things back home at Crossett were not good. Barry’s father was released from prison and his mother was slipping further into her depression and drug abuse. One weekend in August of 1959, Switzer returned home for a visit to Crossett. It bothered Switzer seeing her in the condition she was in. That night while getting ready for bed, Barry’s mother entered his room and sat at the foot of his bed, he realized the barbiturates and alcohol had taken over her life. He then said something to her he would always regret he wrote in his autobiography, “Mother, I would rather to never ever see you