At Oklahoma, Skip Johnson Feels the Love from Patty Gasso, Brent Venables, Porter Moser and Others

Johnson said being part of the OU coaching family and feeling support from others throughout the athletic department is part of OU's "family environment."

OMAHA — Skip Johnson knows he has a pretty good team if the Sooners are competing in the College World Series.

But hey, even one of baseball’s best eight teams could be a little better.

Like, say, if they added some talent from Patty Gasso’s national championship softball squad.

“I’ll take the center fielder,” Johnson said Friday after the Sooners whipped Texas A&M in the opening game of this year’s tournament at Charles Schwab Field. “If we could bring their center fielder to play for us — and the girl that hits all the home runs.”

Alas, while Jayda Coleman has eligibility, Jocelyn Alo is already playing professionally and can’t lend a hand.

It’s all tongue-in-cheek, of course.

“Goodness,” Johnson said, “it's fun.”

That’s how he feels about being on the same coaching staff with a Hall of Fame like Gasso, among others in athletic director Joe Castiglione’s stable of coaching talent.

“Patty does a great job,” Johnson said. “She's a first-class coach. And going over there and watching them play in the Regional was really amazing. They had a really good team.”

While former Sooner quarterback (and outfielder) Kyler Murray got most of the headlines during Friday’s win over A&M, another OU celebrity was up in the seats with family — and nearly caught a foul ball.

“I had a drink in one hand, so I tried to one-hand it,” Porter Moser told AllSooners after the game.

Moser said he had to get back to Oklahoma and couldn’t hang around his old stomping grounds — he played and began his coaching career at Creighton in downtown Omaha, just a block or two from the CWS — even though he wanted to stay and support Johnson and the Sooner baseball squad.

Moser, who coached previously at Loyola Chicago, is a noted Cubs fan. He’s even sung “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” a handful of times at Wrigley Field. He’s also famously worn either an OU baseball jersey or softball jersey at various speaking engagements, like the Sooner Caravan, and frequently speaks about the greatness of Gasso’s program and the red-hot run Johnson’s team is on.

“That's what the University of Oklahoma is about,” Johnson said. “It's a family environment. You talk to everybody around it, the coaches talk to each other. I sat in the regional championship (softball) game with Porter Moser and watched the game. It's what it's about.

“We get texts all the time. Coach (Brent) Venables calls when we win the Big 12 Championship. That's what we do.”