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OU Baseball: Oklahoma Coach Skip Johnson Lands Big 12 Award

The Sooners' skipper leads a team that was picked to finish sixth but wrapped up the regular-season crown with a week to go.
John Hoover|
Skip Johnson
Skip Johnson | Brad McClenny/The Gainesville Sun / USA

In his final season coaching in the conference, Oklahoma coach Skip Johnson was named Big 12 Coach of the Year on Monday.

He's Oklahoma's first Big 12 Coach of the Year in baseball.

Johnson guided the Sooners to the program's first ever regular-season league championship and No. 1 seed in this week's Big 12 Tournament, a feat they pulled off with three games still to play.

OU swept Baylor on May 10-12 to clinch the title even though they still had a series ahead at Cinncinnati. The Sooners took two of three at the Bearcats to finish 23-7 in league play this year, 2 1/2 games ahead of Oklahoma State (20-9) and three games ahead of Texas (20-10).

Oklahoma was picked to finish sixth in the preseason coaches poll but ended up running away with the regular-season crown, sweeping a program-record six conference series. The Sooners are 34-18 this year headed into the postseason.

It's Johnson's seventh year as a head coach. The former long-time Texas pitching coach under Augie Garrido took the Sooners to the College World Series national championship series in 2022, where they finished 45-24 and were national runner up to Ole Miss.

Johnson has a 223-150 career record in Norman as OU heads to Arlington for the conference tournament.

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John E. Hoover
JOHN HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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