'I'm very honored': UNLV football coach Barry Odom makes nostalgic return to All-State clinic (2024)

When he was a boy, UNLV football coach and Maysville native Barry Odom would sneak into Oklahoma Coaches Association clinic meetings.

Odom used to attend the clinic while tagging along with Maysville coach Jerry Gamble and his son, who was one of Odom’s best friends. He’d creep into the back of a session just like the one he led Monday at the Tulsa Marriott Southern Hills Hotel from 10 a.m. to noon in the Council Oak Ballroom to hear coaches talk.

When Odom wasn’t finding a back door to hear coaching philosophies, he’d swim at the hotel until he got kicked out of the pool area. It was a formative time in his life, particularly his football life.

Now, after growing up and making several coaching stops before Las Vegas, he told tales of him growing up as a kid in Oklahoma. Among mostly Oklahoma high school coaches, Odom may have been the most big-time figure in the room, but you wouldn’t have known based on the stories he was telling.

“This clinic had a huge amount of influence on me getting into coaching,” Odom told the Tulsa World. “I looked forward to it every single year to have a chance to come up with Coach Jerry Gamble and his son Jerry Mike, who’s one of my really good friends, and they took me and brought me every year.

“This was very influential for me, and to be able to have a chance to speak here, I’m very honored and humble.”

Among the stories of him finding his way into the coach’s lectures, he shared more: “getting the snot knocked out” of him against Velma, how he came in second in the state championship 400-meter race (which, had he won, would have captured him a third straight title in three classifications, and according to him, would’ve made him the first Oklahoman to do so) his senior year after transferring from Maysville to Ada, among others.

Even a humorous interaction about his third-grade self asking legendary OU coach Barry Switzer to guess what his name was — since they shared the name “Barry” — and Switzer said, “I don’t know, Walden?” since Odom was wearing a ballcap of a Maysville business — Walden Feeding Grain.

And all these stories — especially the ones from the coaching clinic — traveled with him throughout his college coaching career.

“I got to see those things up close growing up, and I thought, ‘Man, how influential a coach can be,’” Odom said. “And then the dreams of being a small-town guy that could go make something happen through the game of football.”

Odom, 47, did make something happen from his small-town roots, as his college coaching career took him to Missouri multiple times, a couple of years at Memphis, another couple at Arkansas and now to Sin City for the Rebels, whom he led to a 9-5 record in his first season last year. He’s taking more Okies out West, too, as UNLV’s roster currently has four Oklahoma natives on it, and the 2025 class has two commits — Muskogee’s Miguel Chavez and Pauls Valley’s Jon Grimmett — and he doesn’t plan to stop recruiting the area with the ‘25 class.

“We’re going to be heavy in recruiting Oklahoma and Arkansas and Texas,” Odom said. “It’s an area that I know and where our staff really knows as well, and the players we’ve got so far from this area have been really good impact players for us.”

After all, he was one of those Oklahoma kids who went on to play college football (he lettered for four seasons at Missouri as a linebacker). After sharing his stories about his Oklahoma upbringing, he shared the 13 points of “The Rebel Way,” which are core principles of UNLV’s program, and broke down film on a projector behind him. He discussed committing to a common goal and being unselfish, then showed clips of linebackers who played for him blowing up plays and his defenses consistently communicating on the field.

But often, he’d stray away from the PowerPoint because the Oklahoman in him always had a story to tell or a lesson to teach to the coaches, who, too, want to succeed and want the best out of their players, like Odom.

Tucked away on the first level of the Southern Hills Marriott behind tents of businesses and vendors, Odom spoke in the ballroom with the coaches from his Oklahoman core.

Maybe it was a way for the third grader who snuck into those sessions years prior to pay it forward.

“To be able to be back in this setting — a number of guys that were here were part of those stories — really, the game of football’s given me so much that I could never give back enough,” Odom said. “Just thankful for this stage and the opportunity to be back in the state for a day.”

All-State Games Schedule

Tuesday

5:30 p.m.: Tennis at University of Tulsa’s Case Center

6 p.m. (small schools) and 7:30 p.m. (large schools): Volleyball at Jenks’ Frank Herald Field House

Wednesday

6 p.m. (large schools) and 7:30 p.m. (small schools): Girls basketball at Sapulpa’s Chieftain Center

7 p.m.: Wrestling at Broken Arrow Event Center

Thursday

6 p.m. (large schools) and 8:30 p.m. (small schools): Boys basketball at Sapulpa’s Chieftain Center

Friday

7 p.m.: Football at Crain Family Stadium, Oklahoma Baptist, Shawnee

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