A GOOD RUN: How Brent Venables finds solitude amid the Sooners' move to the SEC
Don't be surprised to see the OU football coach jogging alone across campus.
NORMAN — A lone figure jogged across the baking blacktop of the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot, heading toward the OU Rugby Fields where the football team would soon be practicing.
White hat. Crimson shirt with a gray undershirt rolled up to the elbows. Crimson shorts. White shoes.
Not exactly out of the ordinary.
But something else was: the runner had a white piece of paper in hand. Who carries around paper while running in the late morning (or any time, for that matter)?
Brent Venables, it turns out.
The Sooner coach ran from the stadium to the rugby fields for practice Tuesday, about a mile and a half. Not super far, but it wasn't like a bunch of folks joined Venables. A few other staffers ran up several minutes after him, but most coaches, players and staffers drove to practice or rode one of the team's buses.
Venables wasn't seeking running buddies, though.
"It's solitude," he told me later.
As the Sooners prepare for the most rugged season in program history — they are not only entering the SEC but also facing the toughest conference schedule in the nation's toughest conference — there is plenty of pressure to go around. Venables, though, faces as much as anyone. He was hired to get the Sooners ready for the SEC.
We're about to find out if they are, and the answer will reflect on Venables.
It'll either be a glorious shine or an uncomfortable spotlight.
So maybe it figures that in the middle of his day, in the moments before practice begins, Venables would take off running across campus.
Running has long been a part of his routine. Has long been an escape, too.
Venables started when he was an assistant coach at Kansas State, his alma mater. Legendary Wildcat coach Bill Snyder was known for demanding long hours from his staff, so Venables and the rest of the coaches arrived at the office early and went home late.
The assistants did, however, have a window around lunchtime to do what they pleased.
Instead of eating, Venables started running.
He didn't have a set pace or a desired distance. He ran as far as he could as fast as he could, and pushing himself like that fed his competitive nature.
But over time, he started to embrace the escape.
Venables has a high-octane personality. He engages fully with everything he does and everyone he comes in contact with. And that takes a lot of energy. Going out for a run became a time of calm for Venables. He could relax and reinvigorate.
Sure, it was about staying in shape, too. Venables, 53, still lifts weight religiously, and he's been spotted on numerous occasions running the stadium stairs above Owen Field.
But jogging gives him something more than a good cardio workout.
"I feel the most clarity I have the whole day is that first hour after the run," he once told USA Today.
So when he left K-State to join Bob Stoops' staff at OU in 1999, Venables kept running. He was regularly seen running through his Norman neighborhood, and many times, he'd be pushing a jogging stroller with his then-young kids.
When he left OU for Clemson in 2012, he kept running.
The only change: South Carolina had way more hills than Oklahoma.
Ironically, since Venables returned to OU as the head coach, the running he's best known for didn't end well. He tripped while leading the Sooners onto the field before OU's game against TCU last fall. He actually took out a few players in the process.
Most of his runs aren't nearly so adventurous.
Venables usually runs between four and seven miles, but how far he goes is often determined by how much time he has. His shorter runs are around 35 minutes, his longer ones 55 minutes.
The shorter ones often happen when he hits snooze a few too many times in the morning.
That might've been the case Tuesday morning.
"I've done it a lot," Venables told me of running to the rugby field for practice.
But ...
"Maybe I didn't get around as fast as I needed to as early as I needed to this morning," he said with a laugh.
Venables admits he also runs so he can eat sweets with a little less guilt.
"Skittles," he said with a smile. "Cheesecake."
But in the run-up to the most important season of Brent Venables' coaching career, he runs most for the reprieve. The relaxation. The release.
It's cardio calm amid the Sooner storm.
Your article on Coach Venables reminds me of a time many years ago when I was matched up against him in a early morning basketball game at the OU practice gym. He was around 40 and I was in my late sixties, but still playing ball. I had the ball at the free throw line and he was playing way off me. I made strong head fake as if I was going to shoot a free throw jumper and was shocked to see him flying over my head in an impressive, if futile, leap past the 3-point line. Bill Dutcher