Odom movin' on up

JOE CLAXTON

November 29, 2007 12:51 pm

— COLUMBIA, MO — For Ada football fans who thought that looked like former Cougar Barry Odom getting a Gatorade bath at the end of Missouri’s 36-28 win over Kansas Saturday ... it was.
“My timing was not too good,” said Mizzou’s assistant AD for Football Operations and the senior leader of Ada’s 1994 state championship team. “I have the best ‘seat’ in the house a few yards behind coach (Gary) Pinkel. I try to make sure he has everything he needs. I thought he had been dumped on already, so I moved up to the sideline and that’s when they got me.”
The latest No. 1 team in the land, the Missouri Tigers (11-1 overall, 7-1 conference), the winners of their first-ever division title in the Arrowhead Stadium showdown in Kansas City, will square off against the Oklahoma Sooners (10-2, 6-2) in Mizzou’s first-ever Big 12 Championship Game appearance. Kickoff for the 2007 Dr. Pepper Big 12 Championship Game is set for 7 p.m. in the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Odom said Columbia has been wild this week, starting with the dousing. It was Gatorade, red Gatorade, at least that was the new color of Odom’s clothing. It also drenched his cell phone.
With the final gun he ran onto the field, to get out of the way of the onslaught more than anything. He felt the phone slip out of his pocket. He turned back in time to see a hulking Missouri lineman step on it.
“Let’s just say he was a healthy guy who had not missed any training tables,” Odom said.
A move-in from Maysville just before his senior year, Odom introduced himself with Ada fans with four touchdowns against the visiting Ardmore Tigers. Unknown to most, the performance had fans checking their Cougar Football books and asking, ‘Who the heck is Barry Odom?’
An undefeated season later, Odom capped off his one-year stand with four more TDs against Clinton, winning the 4A state championship 29-7 at OU’s Owen Field. Like at Arrowhead, he came off the field drenched ... in sweat, having played every down at linebacker and tailback. He admitted later he could not have gone another down.
Then, as suddenly as he came, he was gone. He left behind the state championship, 1,477 yards rushing and a school record 39 TDs until broken by younger brother Brian in ‘98 and reset the following year at the current 41. Oh yes, and the prestigious title Mr. Cougar, so voted by his classmates after only a few months at the school. All that in one action-packed year.
After Ada, Odom sat out a year after reconstructive knee surgery, then starred at Mizzou through 1999. After a year at Mizzou as a freshman, a friend noted that Odom had already lived in Columbia longer than he had lived in Ada.
“It is funny how it all came together. Since 1996 I have been here all but around seven months,” Odom said of Columbia.
“It’s been a lot of fun, just like ol’ Ada was very, very good to me, so it has been here. We continue to work hard just like in ol’ Cougar Country. Coach Pinkel is a great guy to work for,” he said.
The seven months were also spent in Ada, a year as an assistant coach in 2000 under Larry McBroom in his second term at the helm (2000-03). Like in Odom’s lone year as a Cougar player, Ada wound up in the same place, the state championship game. The outcome was different, however. A 17-7 loss to Midwest City Carl Albert ended a 12-2 season.
Arguably the greatest 1-2-3 offensive punch ever at Ada was Odom at tailback and junior Brandon Daniels at quarterback and sophomore B.T. Thomas at fullback in their one year together in 1994. They headlined The Killer B’s as several standout players had names starting with B — Bruce Sutton, Bryan Hughes, Bubba Babb, et al.
A few years later Odom and Daniels were playing against each other, Odom a standout Missouri linebacker, Daniels a multi—positioned player at OU under John Blake and Bob Stoops.
“Yep, we played twice. We beat them 20-6 here in 1998 and they won there in 1999 (Stoops’ first year at OU),” Odom said.
The first meeting saw Daniels’ ill—fated experiment at wishbone quarterback.
“We exchanged a few words when we went on the field. We kicked off and there we were, me at linebacker and B across the line of scrimmage under center. It was really weird, really strange,” Odom said,
Roles were reversed in 1999 with OU winning 37-0 in a 7-5 season. Missouri went 4-7. Daniels the leading receiver with 50 catches for 572 yards.
Odom is always close by, behind Pinkel, on and off the field.
“Things are definitely moving in the right direction. As far as being focused (and not looking ahead to a possible BCS national championship game), we’ll be playing a team that beat us just a month or so ago. They’ll have our full attention without a doubt. OU has tremendous athletes and outstanding coaches,” Odom said.
Odom said the ride has been fantastic whether it ends in San Antonio or continues into 2008 in New Orleans for the BCS National Championship.
“This is a great group of guys. They are very close as a team. They care about the team more than any of that individual stuff. And we are very, very young — 19 of 22 starters are underclassmen,” he said.
ODOM Notebook
With some irony, following Odom’s Gatorade dousing, Dr. Robert Cade the inventor of the sports drink died the following Tuesday.
With further irony, Odom’s younger brother Brian, who set all sorts of career marks as a four-year player with the Cougars (1996-99), helped Stoops brother Mike and the Arizona team give older brother Bob and the Sooners a shot at the national title game. The Wildcats knocked off Oregon on Thursday Nov. 15, and the Sooners moved briefly into the No. 2 spot before losing to Texas Tech on Saturday. Brian is the No. 2 man in Mike Stoops’ strength/conditioning program.
In further keeping up with the Odom boys, older brother Brad, who played his football at Maysville and East Central and was a GA with Ada, is out of the school business after successful head coaching stints at Dickson and Sand Springs. Brad built a home next to Odom patriarch Bob in Pecan Valley west of Pauls Valley and is in the land business with his dad.
Odom and his wife, Tritia, have two sons — James Trump Odom and Garyt Robert.
Furthermore: In his fifth year on staff at Mizzou, Odom made the jump to collegiate coaching in 2002 after three seasons at the prep level. Following his one-year stand back at Ada High, he had a very successful two-year stint as head coach at Columbia’s Rock Bridge High School.
The 2006 season was Odom’s first as Director of Football Operations, after handling the duties of Director of Football Recruiting for the previous two seasons. He was promoted to the title of assistant athletic director in August of 2007.
Odom’s duties are multitude.
According to the Mizzou website he:
• oversees the coordination of the team’s travel plans, has oversight over the football budget, handling compliance issues, scheduling of facilities, assisting with recruiting operations and managing the day—to—day overall operations for the football program.
• coordinates all public relations activities and community service events that require the presence of football student—athletes, and oversaw all organizational aspects from a football perspective related to Mizzou’s 2006 Sun Bowl appearance.
• also served a key role as part of the design and planning team that worked to bring MU’s $16 million expansion and renovation project of the football office complex to a close this February.
Odom graduated from MU in December of 1999, and served as a development intern for the Tiger Scholarship Fund, assisting with various fund raising projects for Tiger Athletics and earning his Master’s in education from MU before returning to Ada.
In his second year at the Rock Bridge helm, Odom guided the Bruins to an 8-4 campaign and the semifinals of the state championship playoffs.

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