1. Barry Layne Switzer was born on October 5,1937 and is an American former college and professional football coach.
26 Facts About Barry Switzer
1. 2.
Barry Switzer served for 16 years as head football coach at the University of Oklahoma and four years as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League.
3.
Barry Switzer has one of the highest winning percentages of any college football coach in history, and is the second of only three head coaches to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl: the others are his Cowboys predecessor Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks.
4.
Barry Switzer was sentenced to five years in prison but the conviction was reversed on appeal.
5.
Barry Switzer accepted an athletic scholarship and played football at the University of Arkansas, where he joined Pi Kappa Alpha.
6.
Barry Switzer made a name for himself when he was OU's offensive coordinator by perfecting the wishbone offense and developing it into the most prolific rushing offense in college football history.
7.
When Fairbanks accepted the position of head coach of the New England Patriots following the 1972 season, Barry Switzer was the obvious choice to succeed him.
8.
Barry Switzer was so successful that by his seventh season in 1979, the St Petersburg Times wrote that Switzer was the high priest of what Billy Sims, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1978, described as the church of OU football.
9.
Barry Switzer led the team to undefeated seasons in 1973 and 1974.
10.
In 1983, Barry Switzer was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an alleged civil violation of the laws prohibiting insider trading of securities.
11.
In 1989, after sixteen years as Oklahoma's head coach, Barry Switzer chose to resign.
12.
Barry Switzer was known as an outstanding recruiter of high school talent, particularly in the neighboring state of Texas.
13.
Barry Switzer was hired the day after Jimmy Johnson, who had won the last two Super Bowls with Dallas, announced his departure from the team.
14.
Barry Switzer did not get to hire his own staff, as the assistant coaches from the previous season were retained.
15.
When Michael Irvin was bumped by Deion Sanders while being targeted for a pass, leading to an incompletion, Barry Switzer was livid that pass interference wasn't called and made his plea to the officials.
16.
The only ignominious loss was a game against the Philadelphia Eagles, in which Barry Switzer elected to try to convert a 4th and 1 from his own 29 with two minutes remaining.
17.
Barry Switzer thought about retiring after the victory, but he was talked out of it by one of his friends in view of what Jones had done for him.
18.
Barry Switzer, who was returning to the team's training camp facility in Austin, said there were children at his Dallas home and he put the gun in his bag to hide it from them.
19.
Barry Switzer said he accidentally forgot to remove the gun from the bag before heading to the airport.
20.
Barry Switzer pleaded guilty, was fined $3,500, and was given one year deferred adjudication.
21.
Each reflected upon their disagreements in Troy Aikman: A Football Life, where Aikman felt that Barry Switzer was not the same hard-driving coach that he had seen at Oklahoma while saying the team was "kind of hanging on" in the post-Johnson era.
22.
In late 2000, Barry Switzer was initiated as an honorary member of the Oklahoma Kappa chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
23.
Barry Switzer was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
24.
On September 9,2007, Barry Switzer joined the Fox NFL Pregame show.
25.
Barry Switzer got into acting after coaching, playing the part of the head coach of the Prattville Pirates in the 1998 movie Possums.
26.
Barry Switzer owns Switzer's Locker Room, Switzer's Vineyards, and a number of other small businesses in the Norman area.