As a kid, I idolized Norman High football players as they strutted around Norman in their NHS letter jackets.

The jackets featured a black woolen body, black leather sleeves, knitted black and orange collar and wristbands, and a big orange “N” sitting boldly over the heart, with the player’s orange number on the left sleeve.

No question, NHS letter jackets were the coolest things ever.

I didn’t “letter” until my senior year, so the amount of time I had to strut around in mine was badly limited.

I phoned the Sports Center store next to NHS every single day towards the end of the season, asking whether mine had come in yet.

Every time I heard “no”, a little piece of me died.

When I finally got it I was over the moon, for about 10 seconds¬¬ – it was obviously too large. They’d ordered the wrong size!

But if I waited for another one, it probably wouldn’t arrive until after graduation, which would have defeated the whole purpose of having a letter jacket.

So I wore it, as it was, pretty much every minute of every day.

Sure, the wool collar rubbed my neck raw. The body was a size too big. And the left sleeve kept falling down over my hook even after I hand sewed the left wristband, which drove me nuts.

But I LOVED that jacket because I had put so much into earning it.

Hundreds of practices, including three horrible summers of two-a-days, plus countless full-contact scrimmages and games at Owens Stadium.

I played with reckless abandon, hurling my 5-4, 128 pound body all over the field to make up for my lack of size.

It took a toll. I couldn’t count the number of sprains, gashes, separations or all the times I had “my bell rung”.

But it was all worth it because I felt like a “rompin’ stompin’ stud” when I was in a pack of other Tiger athletes wearing their letter jackets.

I have a million powerful memories about wearing mine.

One time, our star QB Dean Blevins was sitting in front of me in class, and he had his All State jacket draped over the back of his chair.

He was leaning forward, flirting with a girl, so I switched our jackets.

When the bell rang, he got up and put on my jacket, which looked like it belonged to a fourth grader. And his All State jacket fit me like a tent.

My senior year, my buddies and I watched NHS basketball games from the infamous “Grandstand Boozers” section of our gym.

We were insanely loud, decked out in our letter jackets, and trying hard to get our photo in the Trail (the NHS yearbook).

I succeeded once, sort of. You can’t see my face, but if you look really hard you can make out my finger pointing to Number 28 on my left sleeve.

I thought that was awesome!

Some 15 years later, I was helping my oldest sister, Lynn, move to another house.

We were working in her freezing garage, so I pulled my old letter jacket out of the box where Lynn had stored it for at least a decade.

When I said I was going to give it away, Lynn snatched it right out of my hand.

She’d been in the NHS Pep Club in the mid-Sixties. Back then, before home games, they’d file out of the stands holding hands and COMPLETELY ring the playing field.

Watching them made my little heart just about explode!

Yep, my big sister knew about the power of an NHS letter jacket, and she had no intention of letting mine get away.

Lynn’s pushing 80 now, and no bigger than a minute. But she proudly wears my letter jacket in winter when she’s feeding her chickens in Quinton.

It's so big it makes her look like a fourth grader. And that makes me smile.

(From my second book, "MORE Memories of an Okie Boomer: Growing up in Norman in the 60s and 70s", available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle).

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