COLUMN: As Oklahoma-Texas Looms, Patty Gasso Says 'We Don't Have Rivalries'

The Sooners' coach doesn't "hate" any team, but says OU puts "value on any team we play," while captain Grace Lyons acknowledges playing Texas "can get very emotional."

NORMAN — Maybe Patty Gasso is right. Maybe Oklahoma doesn't really have any softball rivals.

“I know we’re supposed to,” Gasso said this week as the No. 1-ranked Sooners prepared to face Texas on Friday night in Oklahoma City. “When I first got here, it was like, ‘These are the two programs you hate.’ I was like, ‘Why? I don’t know anything about them.’ ”

Now she does, of course. The OU-Texas hate is real, and it’s mutual, as a good bitter rivalry should be. Burnt orange and crimson are like gasoline and flame — put them together in the same stadium and things could get explosive.

OU and No. 9-ranked Texas meet Friday at Hall of Fame Stadium — site of the College World Series, and frankly, more than a few traumatic recent memories for the Longhorns — before returning to the Sooners’ Marita Hynes Field on Saturday and Sunday.

Gasso gets it. OU hates Texas. Texas hates OU. In some circles, rivalry hate makes the sports world go round.

But she still comes at it from her California-cool perspective, chill about the whole Red River Rivalry thing. She’s equally chill about Bedlam (although she’s been known to speak her mind about certain elements of any given rivalry from time to time).

“We don’t look at like, ‘Eww, yuck, we hate,’ ” she said. “I think that’s the beauty of this program. We put value on any team we play. We want to play our best. We know the importance of it. There are a few teams we’ve had some chippiness with, but not to the point of all-out war. We don’t play our game that way.”

Besides, when you’re Oklahoma, and you’ve set new standards for softball excellence, do you really have a rival?

In the real world, rivalries matter. A lot. When Jocelyn Alo hit home runs against Texas or OSU or UCLA in the WCWS, she flew around the bases with just a little more pace. When Sydney Romero made a diving stop against the Longhorns or or Cowgirls or Bruins, her fist-pumps were just a little more forceful.

“I know it can get very emotional when you have that sort of atmosphere around you,” said Grace Lyons, OU’s All-America senior shorstop. “You know, it’s a Red River Rivalry kind of thing. That’s what you dream of when you’re young, all those rivalry games. But I think it’s important to stay neutral and know that we can bring passion but just kind of keep it under control.”

Wearing the big “C” on her chest this year, Lyons knows that one of her roles is to provide whatever flavor of leadership her team needs — and that can change, depending on the moment.

“I think as a leader, it’s important to feel your team and understand how they respond,” Lyons said. “ … I know each team’s different, so I think it’s important to know when they do get excited, or frustrated, you know how to bring that back to neutral. So it’s cool just to have all the different personalities, but to know which ones kind of need that reminder, but also to know which ones kind of feed off of that and that energizes them.”

Lyons said Sooner Nation is entitled to pick whoever they want as the the program’s top rival. Although OU’s trend this year has been to play great against good teams and less great against average teams, Lyons takes a diametrical view to her coach in that she sees everyone on the schedule as a rival.

“Honestly, I love playing good competition,” Lyons said. “So whoever is going to come at us, like, we’re excited to play them. I think that’s a rivalry in itself.”

That said …

“I always remember special moments with Texas,” Lyons acknowledged. “It’s that ‘Sooner Bred, Sooner Born’ type thing that you always want to have fun with those series.”

Gasso said a recent series against Florida State thrust the Seminoles in the role of rival in the eyes of some.

“But I don’t consider them a rival,” Gasso said. “I look forward to playing teams that are going to play the way we do, which is playing hard. We’re making each other better. That’s really important.

“ … When I think of rivalry, I think of hate. And I don’t know if that’s the right way to think of it. So if that’s how it is described, then we don’t have rivalries.”

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