NCAA Football

T. Boone Pickens donates $165 million To Okie St.

Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens has pledged a donation of $165 million to the Oklahoma State University athletic program. His gift — the largest single donation given to an NCAA athletic program — will be used to create an athletic village and upgrade Boone Pickens Stadium (Pickens donated $70 million to the school in 2003).

Pickens earned a degree in oil findin’ (geology) from Okie St. in 1951.

While Pickens’ has one of those surfboard-size cardboard gift checks made up, officials at the school have already started spinning the donation as something other than a billionaire oilman willing to throw an obscene amount of money at his alma mater so they can win some more got dern, cotton-picken’ football games.

Athletic director Mike Holder: “This isn’t just about football or basketball or our major sports. It’s about every sport, giving every coach here and every athlete here the opportunity to strive for excellence.” [New goggles for the swim team?]

Oklahoma State president David Schmidly: “It’ll impact the whole university. It’ll make it easier for us to recruit students, it’ll help us recruit faculty. Every aspect of the university is going to benefit from this.” [Nothing attracts top scholars like the promise of new lockers for the football team.]

Say what you want about ol’ T. Boone, but he at least is keeping it real: “What I keep coming back to is we’re in the Big 12 and it’s a tough conference. I want us to be competitive.”

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