When OU wide receiver Isaiah Sategna blew past LSU defensive backs in busted coverage last week to catch a game-sealing 58-yard TD pass, I missed the moment.
I could say that I was out back on our patio grilling or answering an unexpected knock at the door, but it would not be true.
The truth is that because it was late in a really tight game and I was invested in the outcome as someone who has bought into OU, I found something else to do at that moment.
Why?
Well, turning my back on a close game in which I have a rooting interest goes back many decades. I’m not even sure what to call it. Lack of courage? Can’t face reality?
Call it what you will, but I prefer to call it my double-reverse jinx.
As a pre-teen in the early 1960s, the Arkansas Razorbacks were my team. I lived and died with the Hogs. In those days, you mostly had only radio broadcasts on which to follow college football games.
So, when the Hogs were playing on an autumn afternoon I was tuned in — until I wasn’t. I specifically remember, when, in the second half of a really close game with the Razorbacks in a precarious position, I abandoned the radio, ran out into the back yard and started throwing a football around.
A few minutes later, I went back in and caught a couple minutes of the broadcast, but the outcome was still pending. I went back outside.
When the Hogs won that game with me not listening, I decided that all their success hinged on me not ever listening again when the outcome was on the line. Somehow, I controlled their fate.
My double-reverse jinx helped the Hogs have a great decade of success in the ’60s.
Fast forward to the late ’80s when I worked on the sports desk as a copy editor at The Daily Oklahoman. That meant that my daily working hours were from roughly 3-4 pm until midnight or 1 am.
Those working hours afforded the opportunity to drive out to the then-new Remington Park race track in the early afternoon on almost a daily basis to watch and wager on the horse races.
You know where this is going.
Yep, if I had $2 on a horse and it was among the leaders as they came off the final turn and into the stretch, I would turn my back and only listen to the track announcer’s call. One afternoon, I had maybe $5 on a horse and spent the entire race in the men’s room, safe from ruining the outcome by actually watching my horse.
I took a lot of grief from my newsroom colleagues for not being able to watch the outcome of races on which I had wagered. But that’s how I rolled.
Fast forward to 2025. It’s still how I roll when watching the Sooners, the Razorbacks, even the Thunder. When the game gets tough and the outcome precarious, I bail on the game.
And then it happens. Shai Gilgious-Alexander hits a game clinching 3. Isaiah Sategna makes a game winning catch.
The old double-reverse jinx does it again.
BONUS CONTENT: Don Mecoy, a friend and past contributor to BlogOKC, shared some of his own experience in not jinxing his favorite teams:
“Super Bowl V. Cowboys-Colts. I got on my bike during the game and rode and rode. Didn’t help.
“National Championship game in 2000. Sat in the same spot on the couch throughout the first and second half. Really had to pee by the end of the game. And I was hungry too. Literally didn’t get up once.”
Thanks for this perspective, Don. I am not alone!
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 