Friday, November 27, 2020
Bedlam brawl DJ Kurtenbach was just doing his job when he quickly found himself in a pile of adults all fighting for a loose football. Part of his job is to retrieve the ball after field goal make, as he did in the north end zone of Gaylord FamilyMemorial Stadium during Saturday’s Bedlam game. Shortly after the scrum started, it turned violent with fans, all in crimson, punching, kicking and throwing beer on him. During a normal away game, Kurtenbach is the only equipment manager who goes to retrieve the kicked ball, but when the team goes to Norman, it places three managers in the stands, all at different levels to ensure the safe recovery of the ball. “Any time we go to Norman, it’s not just this year, but this year was a lot worse than normal, they have the tradition where they throw the ball over the stadium,” Kurtenbach told The O’Colly. “It’s our job to get that ball back, and if it goes over the stadium, we don’t get it back. This year they were more into it than normal, and things went south.” However the physicality began before the OSU field goal unit even lined up on
the field. “Before the ball was even kicked, we had fans pushing and throwing us around, trying to distract us as much as possible so that we wouldn’t get the ball back,” Kurtenbach said. When the ball reached the stands after the field goal, OU fans tried to start their longstanding tradition, one Kurtenbach wants to change, of throwing the opposing team ball over the stadium. At first, an OU fan caught the ball and threw it to a higher section where Kurtenbach was waiting. “I can’t really remember how I caught it,” Kurtenbach said. “The video shows I caught it with one hand, then I got pulled back into the bleachers to my back. At that point, I knew what was about to come, so I put two hands on the ball with the goal of not losing it and to not let the OU fans succeed in getting the ball. That moment I didn’t expect to get punched, kicked and beer thrown at me by the fans. It was a lot to take in.” OSU athletics Eventually the other equipment managers and a DJ Kurtenbach, OSU's equipment manager, was assaulted during last week's Bedlam matchup. couple of helpful fans pulled the agitators away from the couldn’t make out everything at me, I can’t remember what was pile, so Kurtenbach could that was said because of the exactly said to me.” return the ball to the Cowboy intensity. He got to the sideline where sideline, but the scrum for the “They were mostly yelling he handed the ball off to another ball was just the beginning. at the other managers,” Kurtenmanager before he started to “When I got back off the bach said. “I couldn’t really tell struggle to breathe, and trainers bleachers and back onto the what they were yelling at me, one began to work on him. A couple of field my leg gave out at that of the managers said it looked minutes later, Kurtenbach went to moment, I knew something like I may have blacked out at the locker room for halftime. was wrong with my body,” one point, which is definitely Kurtenbach said. possible. Other than just the cuss During the incident, words and the beer being thrown See on page 3 Kurtenbach heard yelling, but
OSU. But even with a resume that would stand out among many applicants, Fry doesn’t plan on applying for the OSU-Tulsa open president President Pamela position in StillFry seemingly water due to unhas all the right finished business leadership quali- in Tulsa. ties to fill OSU “I’m not President Burns planning on apHargis’ vacancy. plying,” Fry said. She was the “I really have provost at the very ambitious Tulsa campus, and solid goals has 30 years of for OSU Tulsa higher education that I want to Courtesy of Oklahoma State University experience and speak through, has a masters and but I’ll do everyOSU-Tulsa President Pamela Fry won't apply to be the president of the doctorate from thing in my pow-
er to support the success of who, who does replace President Hargis.” Fry’s goals were set at the beginning of her tenure. The main goal set by her administration is for the OSU-Tulsa campus to provide Tulsa with an urban-serving research university. “One of the overarching goals is that OSU Tulsa becomes a premier urban serving metropolitan research university for
Tulsa,” Fry said. It’s really applying the land grant idea that OSU is founded on, but applying it to the urban setting. So with that, there’s six goals.” Those six goals spell out the acronym “aspire”, which represents access to more classes, service to the community, premier programs and facilities, innovation, research and economic development. See on page 2