Oklahoma Sooners

Jay Wilkinson, the son of legendary Oklahoma football coach Bud Wilkinson, writes about his dad on Father's Day.

As Father’s Day approaches, I’ve had cause -- like most --to reflect on my own father. He’s been gone now for almost twenty years, but almost every day in some way I’ve considered the impact he’s had on my life. He was someone I looked up to no matter how tall I’d grown.

He inspired a great many others, too. There is no greater compliment than when someone says, “You remind me of your father.”

My dad was Bud Wilkinson, one of the most successful and well-respected college football coaches of all time. His players at the University of Oklahoma called him the “Great White Father” at the peak of the program’s winning ways. Dad considered the label a term of affection and relished its underlying meaning.

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Every week, Bud Wilkinson took time to write a letter to his son, who was away halfway across the country in college.

Some were letters of encouragement. Some were letters of guidance. Some were about, well, football. But all of them revealed another side of the legendary Oklahoma coach -- as a loving and devoted father.

In the book “Dear Jay, Love Bud” -- which goes on sale Thursday -- Jay Wilkinson shares forty-seven letters his father sent to him while he was starring in football for Duke, and later, attending theology school.

“I was aware at that age that these lessons, principles and values he was talking about were very special and were certainly part of what made him such a successful coach and a successful man,” Jay said. “They reveal his defining qualities as a man. Themes of character, thoughtfulness, unselfishness, preparation and perseverance.”

As a college student, Jay didn’t know he would someday be showing his father’s letters to the world. But something inside him said then he should hang onto them.

“Even then I felt they had some historical significance,” Jay said. Some letters were lost over the years. But enough survived to give the reader a portrait of the man who launched the OU football dynasty in the 1950s.

Jay got the idea for the book a couple of years ago after he was asked to deliver a speech during the commemoration ceremony of the Bud Wilkinson Room at the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

“For many years, I kept the letters in an envelope in a drawer next to my bed, but I never took time to go read them,” Jay said. “I pulled out one of the letters, and thought they could show a different perspective about my dad that the average person might not know.”

The speech, and the letters, were a hit. Jay knew then he needed to put the letters in a book.

“I returned home and told my wife, ‘I should take the time and reconstruct what these letters mean,” Jay said. “Then and now.”

“Dear Jay, Love Bud” will be available for purchase on Thursday at winningthewilkinsonway.com You can also find it at Oklahoma bookstores, Amazon.com, OUPress.com or by calling 325-2000.

Jay is also the author of “Bud Wilkinson: An Intimate Portrait of an American Legend.”

Read an excerpt from Wilkinson's book after the jump.

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