Oklahoma Football ‘Architect’ Wilkinson Dies : College football: Ex-coach began Sooner greatness with three national titles in the 1950s.

When the legendary Bud Wilkinson died of congestive heart failure late Wednesday, a little bit of Oklahoma died with him.

It was Wilkinson, 77, the soft-spoken architect of a Sooner football dynasty, who led Oklahoma to its first national championship in 1950, another in ’55 and still another the next year. By the time he retired from Oklahoma in 1963, Wilkinson’s record was nearly untouchable: three national titles, the longest victory streak in NCAA football history (47), 14 conference championships, a 145-29-4 record--and all of it done with class and elegance.

“He made this what it is,” former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer told the Associated Press. “I think he was truly not only a great coach, but a fine gentleman and a guy who touched a lot of people’s lives.”

Wilkinson, who died at his St. Louis home after a long illness, underwent recent heart surgery. Three months earlier, he suffered the last of a series of strokes that ultimately left him without much of his sight.

At his bedside Wednesday night were wife Donna and youngest son Jay. A funeral service is planned Monday at a St. Louis church.

Wilkinson’s legacy is visible nearly everywhere on the Oklahoma campus. The Bud Wilkinson House is the school’s football dormitory. A stadium scoreboard includes his three national championship teams. In the Sooner locker room is a sign touched by every player as they make their way toward the field. “Play Like a Champion Today,” it reads, and during Wilkinson’s tenure the Sooners did just that.

So dominant were Wilkinson’s teams of the 1940s and 1950s, the Sporting News later compiled a list of the 25 most powerful squads in NCAA history. Wilkinson’s 1955-56 team was ranked third.

“Johnny Majors (the 1956 Heisman Trophy runner-up from Tennessee) couldn’t have made our team,” said Jimmy Harris, the Sooner quarterback that year.

Despite his many successes at Oklahoma, Wilkinson distanced himself from the program upon retiring. In 1989, when Wilkinson House was the site of a rape and a shooting, the former Sooner coach told The Times: “It’s something that you’re not in any way pleased to be associated with.”

After his initial departure from coaching, Wilkinson, a Republican, ran for the U.S. Senate. He lost but by only 20,000 votes. In contrast, 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s defeat in the state was significantly greater.

Twelve years later, Wilkinson returned to football, this time as coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. In less than two NFL seasons, Wilkinson lost 19 games, after losing only 29 during his college career.