In Memoriam: Former Sooners Recall John Blake as 'Real,' a 'Great Man,' a 'Man of Faith' and a 'Gifted' Recruiter Who Helped Build OU's 2000 Title Team
John Blake was more than a football player. More than a coach.
“He was genuine. He was real,” North Texas head coach and former Sooner fullback Seth Littrell told SI Sooners. “He was a great man, a man of faith. He was a great mentor.”
Blake’s sudden death Thursday at the age of 59 left a hole in the hearts of those who knew him best.
“I was shocked,” Blake teammate and understudy Tony Casillas told SI Sooners. “I hadn’t talked to John lately, but you know how it is, you just think you’re gonna continue to live and live, and something like that just really stunned me. Just so sad to hear something like that."
Littrell, a Muskogee native whom Blake recruited to Norman in 1997, remained close to his former coach. As Littrell’s head coaching career blossomed at North Texas, Blake made frequent visits to UNT practices and meetings. But their relationship ran much deeper than football.
“Shoot, a couple years ago, my son was in the hospital for over two weeks and he’d go up and pray over him,” Littrell said. “So we had a really good relationship. It was terrible to hear the news this morning. Crushed me. I’m definitely praying for his wife Freda and his son Jourdan. It’s a crazy day.”
Blake played under Barry Switzer at OU from 1979-82. When Casillas arrived in Norman as an All-State nose guard out of Tulsa East Central in 1982, Blake was a senior already entrenched at the position — and became Casillas’ friend and mentor.
Said Casillas, “He’d say, ‘You’re gonna be my Little Freak. I’m the Big Freak. I’m gonna teach you how to ball.’ ”
Casillas hailed from East Tulsa, while Blake came out of Sand Springs, on Tulsa’s west side. Casillas eventually became one of the greatest defensive linemen in OU history, and he always drew from that one season he played with Blake.
“I’d heard about him (in high school),” Casillas said. “Because he was just so quick. He kind of fashioned the 2-technique of playing nose. Tremendously quick. And a tremendous, dude, man. Always smiling.
“I looked up to him when he was a senior at OU. He was Sand Springs, Oklahoma, man! Quick as a cat! We used to call him El Gato — quick as a cat. And he’d say, ‘Casillas, man, you’re gonna be quick as a cat! Big Freak!’ ”
Casillas and Blake later reunited with the Dallas Cowboys in 1993 when Blake joined the team as defensive line coach and Casillas was in the midst of a 12-year NFL career (five with Dallas).
“Same type of relationship,” Casillas said. “Most of the guys liked him. When I found out (today’s news), I texted most of my guys, former teammates in Dallas, and everybody was just so sad by the news. Everybody loved John.”
After Howard Schnellenberger’s lone season in 1995 resulted in a 5-5-1 record and his quick exit, Oklahoma named Blake their new head coach on Dec. 31, 1995. From 1996-98, he ran the ship during the leanest three-year period in OU football history.
Blake took a lot of blame over the years for the Sooners’ three-year slide, but it wasn’t all his fault. The reality is that OU spent a decade trying to recover from severe NCAA probation levied in 1989 at the end of Switzer’s tenure.
Gary Gibbs’ career record was 44-23-2, and two of his last three seasons ended with records of 5-4-2 and 6-6. Followed immediately by Schnellenberger’s one-year folly, Blake took over OU football at its lowest point in almost 30 years.
Blake’s record of 12-22 led to his firing the day after the 1998 season ended. That prompted new athletic director Joe Castiglione to hire Bob Stoops, and the long-term restoration of Sooner football was underway.
But the fact remains: Blake recruited roughly half of Oklahoma’s 2000 national championship two-deep — players like Roy Williams, Rocky Calmus, Curtis Fagan, Damian Mackey, Frank Romero, Trent Smith and Andre Woolfolk in the 1998 freshman class, and Littrell, Rocky Bright, Corey Callens, Jeff Ferguson, Bary Holleyman, Ontei Jones, Roger Steffen and J.T. Thatcher in the 1997 freshman class.
Gary Lowell was an OU safety from 1978-82 and a year older than Blake. Now a realtor in the DFW Metroplex, Lowell said he has a lot of time to ponder things while driving between locations.
He said Blake made an impression on him from the first day they met with his gregarious, friendly nature, and he thought a lot about that when Stoops’ team won the national championship in 2000.
“Thing that stood out in my mind most about Blake — I remember when he left OU — I just talked to you about the type of person he was, speaking, knowing friends, developing friendships amongst your teammates,” Lowell told SI Sooners. “He did the same thing when he was recruiting, and I think he did a hell of a job recruiting at OU.
“And that crew, that last recruiting (class), when Stoops came in and won the national championship in 2000 — not to take anything away from Stoops — but those were Blake’s recruits.”
Said Casillas, “You’ve got to get the players, and I think he was kind of able to delegate and talk to the kids. He was able to get to them, get into their souls more than other coaches could. And there’s some relevancy in that. Because not too many coaches can do that. You look back, I don’t think John Blake probably got enough credit for how great a recruiter he was.
“He was truly, truly a gifted person with the way he was able to communicate with people.”
No one can argue Stoops’ results. But former OU president David Boren told The Oklahoman in 2018 that even though Blake told him he needed more time with the ’97 and ’98 recruiting classes, he figured Blake had enough time, and decided to move in a different direction.
“The sad part is he didn’t have the opportunity,” Lowell said. “He had set everything into place to make that happen, but he never got the recognition for that. That’s what I remember. That’s what crossed my mind today. He had made it easy, I think, with his pizzazz on recruits. He had a way with guys. I could see that from playing with him, why he ended up being such a great recruiter. But I just think he never got his recognition to really shine, you know, when he lost his job there at OU. Because that group of guys in that lineup, man, they went on to win the national championship under Stoops.”
Lowell knows that’s not a popular sentiment among Sooner fans, but he feels strongly about it.
“It is what it is. It’s the truth,” Lowell said. “I’m giving you something from the heart, man. It’s there. And a lot of folks told don’t realize that. But I just had to say that.”
In an OU statement, OU president Joe Harroz echoed those sentiments.
“His years of service to our university and Sooner football were critical building blocks to our program's success, and the impact he had on our student-athletes is indelible,“ Harroz said.
In 2008, as OU prepared for the Orange Bowl against Florida, Blake told the New York Times that he wasn't bitter about the connection frequently lost between his and Stoops' legacies.
“I’m happy for Bob because sometimes one man’s sacrifice is another man’s gain, and I really believe that,” Blake told The Times. “Through the process, I sacrificed a whole lot and took a whole lot of negative things. But if it’s for one man to gain the glory, then I’ll just accept it. That’s fine with me.”
After Schnellenberger’s short stay, then-athletic director Donnie Duncan was given a committee to help him find the Sooners’ next head coach. Blake left Dallas amid some controversy (he told Switzer that quarterback Troy Aikman was favoring white players over black players, which many black Dallas players said was false). Nevertheless, Switzer, who recruited Blake to OU and worked with him in 1994-95 in Dallas, gave OU a sterling recommendation on Blake because he knew Blake’s personality would be a draw for recruits.
But Blake’s coaching staffs in Norman never achieved any lasting harmony, despite talent like Rex Ryan, Bill Young, Clarence James and others. Blake’s biggest downfall may have been his tendency to switch up offensive philosophies in the middle of a season — sometimes in midweek. In 1997, OU used a pro style offense in the season opener, then switched to the option. The cover of the 1998 OU Media Guide declared “The ‘Bone is Back” as Blake expressed a desire to run the wishbone, but OU’s final iteration of the wishbone didn’t even make it out of the preseason.
Blake remains the only black head football coach in OU history. After one year under Duncan, he worked the 1997 and ’98 seasons under Steve Owens as AD before Castiglione was hired in April 1998.
Duncan was one of OU head coach Lincoln Riley's closest mentors before he died, so Riley knew about Blake before he took over the reins in 2017.
“The thing I've always heard about coach Blake is how much he loved and cared for his players and how those feelings were reciprocal,” OU coach Lincoln Riley said in a statement. “That's such a profound element of the coaching profession — developing bonds with players that extend beyond the field. Our program is very saddened to learn of coach Blake's passing and we extend our deepest condolences to his family. Everything I know about him is that he loved being a Sooner.”
Said Castiglione, “We are stunned and saddened by the news of coach Blake's passing. He was never hesitant in displaying love for his family, his players or how much he valued the honor of being a Sooner. His legacy as OU's first Black head coach in any sport is incredibly meaningful and will live on forever. We offer our heartfelt thoughts and our prayers to his family. He was a Sooner through and through.”
Blake won two Super Bowls with the Cowboys (one under Jimmy Johnson, one under Switzer), then after he left OU didn’t return to college coaching until 2003, when he joined Mississippi State as an assistant. He then spent three years under Bill Callahan at Nebraska (2004-06), then three full seasons (2007-09) at North Carolina under Butch Davis, under whom Blake played at Charles Page High School in Sand Springs in 1976-77.
Blake and Davis didn’t part amicably, however, thanks to Blake’s relationship with sports agent Gary Wichard that got UNC on probation and led to his resignation one game into the 2010 season.
Blake’s final season in coaching was in 2016 with the Buffalo Bills.
Lowell laughed as he recalled the day he first met Blake in the OU cafeteria.
“First thing I noticed about John, man, he was a people person,” Lowell said. “He didn’t meet a stranger. You couldn’t help but like him because he just had a way with words. He was a freshman, but he was kind of a comedian. He could make you laugh — dying.
“He came and sat down at our table, he was talking and introduced himself to the guys, and he had these, just, big guns on him — some of the largest arms I’d ever laid my eyes on, right? I asked him how much he bench pressed. He said, ‘Yeah man, I love my guns. These are my pythons. You want to feel ‘em?’ And I did, and I’m telling you, the skin did not crease at all. He was … like a brick house.
“He was just a team player, man, just an awesome, awesome young man. It was hard to swallow when I heard about his death.”
Lowell described what made Blake special as a person, but especially as a recruiter.
“He had that sense that, when something’s going wrong with a certain player, or when a player’s having bad day or something, John had a sense of what you were going through,” Lowell said. “He had the words to say, something positive to bring you out of it. That’s the type of team player he was. You didn’t mind talking to him.
“That’s why he built a legacy of coaching. Once he got into the field, that’s why he went as far as he did, because he had that tenacity. He just had it. Some people have it, some don’t. That’s what I remember about John Blake most of all. He just knew how to deal with everyone and everybody liked him, so to speak.”
Blake grew up in Sand Springs with five brothers and sisters. He was a tremendous player — he was MVP of the 1979 All-State and Oil Bowl games — and eventually received his bachelor's degree in communications from OU. His personality as a young, outgoing player carried over long after his playing days ended.
“I’ll remember him as a great mentor, a guy that I have a lot of respect for, who he was as a person,” Littrell said. “He had a great personality. He cared a lot about his alma mater, and Oklahoma. He cared about his players. I’ll just remember the type of person he was. That great smile and great personality and the relationships we had a chance to build.
“And even when I got there early on, I was a freshman and sophomore, I got two years to play with coach Blake. He was more so on the defensive side of the ball, but we had a great relationship. Shoot, we would go out and he would take me fishing at times, we’d go to lunch at times, just one-on-one. That’s why I wanted to play for him at that time. His personality fit. He was genuine.”
“He was just a team player, man,” Lowell said. “Awesome young man. He’s gonna be missed dearly.”
Said Casillas, “I think all those guys right now are probably crying just like me, because at one point in their lives, John Blake touched ‘em. That’s the sad part about it. Time goes by so fast, and you don’t get a chance to appreciate those people until they’re gone, and then you sometimes feel you didn’t do ‘em justice.
“The thing I’ll always remember about John, he was such a good person, man.”
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