on Brent Venables' tormented upbringing and how it shapes him today. SIAP.
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The Oklahoma Sooners are in their second week of spring practice, and the football facility is buzzing with high school football players and their families ahead of a critical recruiting weekend, but head coach Brent Venables -- just three months into the job after his December hire -- wants to talk about breakfast cereal.
He's in his office, which looks like a cross between a Silicon Valley boardroom and a ski chalet, and he already has decided he doesn't want to spend too much time here because, frankly, he isn't a "big office kind of guy." He wants to be in the middle of the action, and this office is designed to stand out. Away from campus, however, he has been holed up in a two-bedroom condo, waiting out the school year before his wife and two daughters join him in Norman. What he loves about the place, though, is a shelf in the kitchen where he keeps his supply -- Fruity Pebbles, Trix, Cocoa Puffs and his personal favorite, Lucky Charms.
"I've got a few healthy brands too," Venables insists.
In all, there are maybe eight or 10 boxes of cereal and, brother, is he stoked about it.
Maybe this is nostalgia. He is, after all, returning to his coaching roots at a place that's always felt like home. But go deeper into Venables' past and those cereal boxes mean something more. For a poor kid from Kansas, they were a horizon he aimed for and, now, perhaps a reminder of how far he has come.
"I remember having this vision that, when I grow up, when I get big, I'm going to have every cereal imaginable," he says.
When Venables was 2, his father moved the family from Florida to Kansas, then promptly left. Venables said his mom was kind and loving but had awful taste in men. Four stepdads came and went during his youth along with a cadre of abusive or alcoholic boyfriends, he said. His mom was a soft touch, the kind who happily takes in every stray dog or cat in the neighborhood. She had a fondness for tragic figures, according to Venables.
"She believed in people even through all their warts and weaknesses," he says. "She always saw the good in people, and for us, that wasn't a very healthy environment to grow up in."
When Venables would visit friends' homes with shelves cluttered with brightly colored boxes featuring cartoon pirates and giggling leprechauns, he would be in awe. His family shopped at Food 4 Less. They bought Corn Flakes.
"If you wanted frosted Corn Flakes, you dumped sugar on them," Venables says in the same intense way he says nearly everything -- eyes bulging, arms waving, like he is telling a defensive tackle how to hit an A-gap. "That's it, man. Load it up."
Something about those unfamiliar cereal boxes ignited a passion inside Venables. They represented stability and happiness and a safe space where, as Venables says, "You didn't hear a beer can opening before noon every day."
Full story
The Oklahoma Sooners are in their second week of spring practice, and the football facility is buzzing with high school football players and their families ahead of a critical recruiting weekend, but head coach Brent Venables -- just three months into the job after his December hire -- wants to talk about breakfast cereal.
He's in his office, which looks like a cross between a Silicon Valley boardroom and a ski chalet, and he already has decided he doesn't want to spend too much time here because, frankly, he isn't a "big office kind of guy." He wants to be in the middle of the action, and this office is designed to stand out. Away from campus, however, he has been holed up in a two-bedroom condo, waiting out the school year before his wife and two daughters join him in Norman. What he loves about the place, though, is a shelf in the kitchen where he keeps his supply -- Fruity Pebbles, Trix, Cocoa Puffs and his personal favorite, Lucky Charms.
"I've got a few healthy brands too," Venables insists.
In all, there are maybe eight or 10 boxes of cereal and, brother, is he stoked about it.
Maybe this is nostalgia. He is, after all, returning to his coaching roots at a place that's always felt like home. But go deeper into Venables' past and those cereal boxes mean something more. For a poor kid from Kansas, they were a horizon he aimed for and, now, perhaps a reminder of how far he has come.
"I remember having this vision that, when I grow up, when I get big, I'm going to have every cereal imaginable," he says.
When Venables was 2, his father moved the family from Florida to Kansas, then promptly left. Venables said his mom was kind and loving but had awful taste in men. Four stepdads came and went during his youth along with a cadre of abusive or alcoholic boyfriends, he said. His mom was a soft touch, the kind who happily takes in every stray dog or cat in the neighborhood. She had a fondness for tragic figures, according to Venables.
"She believed in people even through all their warts and weaknesses," he says. "She always saw the good in people, and for us, that wasn't a very healthy environment to grow up in."
When Venables would visit friends' homes with shelves cluttered with brightly colored boxes featuring cartoon pirates and giggling leprechauns, he would be in awe. His family shopped at Food 4 Less. They bought Corn Flakes.
"If you wanted frosted Corn Flakes, you dumped sugar on them," Venables says in the same intense way he says nearly everything -- eyes bulging, arms waving, like he is telling a defensive tackle how to hit an A-gap. "That's it, man. Load it up."
Something about those unfamiliar cereal boxes ignited a passion inside Venables. They represented stability and happiness and a safe space where, as Venables says, "You didn't hear a beer can opening before noon every day."
