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Sooner Nation Tributes Pour In for Oklahoma Legend Toby Keith

The country music icon and forever Sooners fan lost his fight with cancer on Monday night, and OU royalty opened their hearts on social media.
John E. Hoover|
Sooner Nation Tributes Pour In for Oklahoma Legend Toby Keith
Sooner Nation Tributes Pour In for Oklahoma Legend Toby Keith

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Toby Keith was a true Oklahoma original.

From a kid who grew up in Moore selling soft drinks at OU games to the country music industry's biggest star selling more than 40 million albums, Keith always did it his way. 

Keith died Monday night after a battle with cancer. He was 62.

Keith was an unabashed Sooner fan, and that never wavered. A fixture on the football sideline for most of the last 25 years, a permanent guest under the basket at both men's and women's basketball games, when Keith wasn't touring, he was cheering for the Sooners.

And he left quite the legacy among those in Sooner Nation. Here's a sampling of those who opened up on social media Monday:

ender

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. 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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