Former OU standout Granville Liggins loves Canada, still a Sooner at heart

Former OU standout Granville Liggins loves Canada, still a Sooner at heart

Granville Liggins sat in the lobby of OU’s Washington House dorm in spring 1968. A scout for the Calgary Stampeders was trying to talk Liggins into playing in the Canadian Football League.

University of Oklahoma football player Granville Liggins in photo taken on September 22, 1965 by staff photographer Bob Albright.

“He asked me if I would like to come to Canada,” Liggins said. “I said, ‘Where is that?’ I literally said that.

“He said, ‘Just north of here.’

“I said, ‘Calvary?’

“‘No, no. Calgary.'”

Liggins flew to Calgary, Alberta. “I had a look around,” Liggins said. “I said, ‘This place is a lot like Oklahoma. Horses. Cowboys. Indians.”

Forty-two years later, the Sooner legend still lives in Canada. Even became a Canadian citizen.

But Liggins, now 64 years old and living in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario, remains a Sooner at heart.

Liggins, a 1966 and 1967 All-American and the first of OU’s long line of great nose guards, has “XSOONER” for his license plate. His rec room includes his OU helmet, a Sooner rug, OU trash cans and flags, pictures and plaques from his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and Bob Hope Christmas Special, and his OU diploma hanging on the wall.

Saturday morning, sitting in his mother’s house in northwest Oklahoma City, a day after flying in for a visit, Liggins marveled that someone wanted to talk about his football days.

“I feel very humbled that people still remember I played at OU,” Liggins said.

Make no mistake. OU fans of a certain age haven’t forgotten the 215-pound menace in the middle, who thrived on such quickness that no less than Darrell Royal said Liggins seemed offside on every play.

And while Liggins doesn’t follow the Sooners religiously — details escape him, like the name of the current OU coach and recent Heisman-winning quarterback — his voice still swells with pride at memories.

Running down the old ramp at Owen Field (“chills run down my spine”). Being carried off the mat after upsetting mammoth Iowa State heavyweight Ted Tuinstra in the 1967 Big Eight wrestling finals. Barry Switzer’s relationship with the black players, even when he was just offensive coordinator and the black players were few.

Liggins recalled the old house where he grew up on Detroit Avenue in Tulsa, his mother raising three sons after Liggins’ father died when he was six years old.

“I used to watch OU, glued in front of the TV all the time,” Liggins said. He watched Bud Wilkinson’s Sunday coach’s show, during which Wilkinson would diagram plays. Watched OU’s Ed McQuarters, a fellow Tulsa Washington graduate, and wanted to follow in his footsteps.

“I wanted to play for OU,” Liggins said. “Drove my mother crazy going to football practice. I said, ‘Mother, all I’m trying to do is earn a scholarship.’

“To play for the Sooners was the ultimate.”

Liggins played five years with the Stampeders, then five years with the Toronto Argonauts. And upon retirement, Liggins decided to stay.

“I loved the country,” Liggins said. “I loved the people. Very multi-cultural. We all seem to get along.

“I say ‘eh’ instead of ‘huh.’ I say please and thank you 20 times a day. Canadians are very apologetic people.'”

After football, Liggins made a career as a uniform salesman. He said he was fired three years ago and has an age-discrimination suit pending.

Liggins and his second wife, Angela, have taken up gardening, which is only a four- or five-month enterprise in Canada, and Liggins makes appearances for Argonaut fund-raisers.

Liggins makes it clear he’s still an American, too, but he’s now spent two-thirds of his life north of the border.

Said Liggins, “I liked it so much, I decided to stay.”

BY BERRY TRAMEL, Staff Writer, [email][email protected] Oklahoman
Published: July 17, 2010

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