Rance Weryackwe became aware of his Comanche heritage and the history behind the words “boomer” and “sooner” in third grade.
It happened at his elementary school while Weryackwe was outside for lunch with his classmates and others. Leaders of each class in his grade were allowed to choose a spot in the grass to eat their meals.
After an administrator gave the signal, he said, class leaders ran to a spot and stuck a stake in the ground to designate the location where their class would eat. Weryackwe said even his third grade self thought it did not seem right.
“I remember that going on and thinking, ‘Why are we celebrating this?’" he said. “All the other kids were happy except me, and I didn’t really know why. I felt bad, and I had no idea why.”
The words “boomer” and “sooner” are terms that define those who participated in the Land Rush of 1889. Sooners refer to people who prematurely rushed to acquire land in Oklahoma before they were legally allowed to, and boomers refer to those who believed that Native American land in the late 1800s should be deemed public.
“[Boomer and sooner are] a celebration of a loss of culture and loss of land,” Weryackwe said. “We need to start talking about it more.”
The taking of land by the “boomers” and “sooners” diminished the land of Native Americans, Weryackwe said, and in turn worsened their quality of life.
“With the reduction of land base also comes a reduction of economy and culture,” he said, “which leads into spirituality and ways of worship. Land is tied to religion. Indians do identify with the loss of land with it.”
The Jim Thorpe Multicultural Center used to be a designated center for Native Americans until the late 1990s when it transformed into a center for all minority cultures on campus, said Heather Shotton, Native American Studies professor.
“That really marked a shift in the function of the Jim Thorpe Center,” she said. “It became more widely used by the university, and it had a greater focus on diversity and multiculturalism.”
The old center was located where Zarrow Hall is today, but eventually, Shotton said, because of the center’s changing function and its inability to hold all of the parties who utilized it, it was demolished and moved into its current location south of the dorms.
“Students used to be able to come in daily,” she said. “Now they have to make an appointment to use it. There was definitely a shift in its function.”
Native students are often more successful in institutions that have centers designated specifically for them, Shotton said.
“We often see that their students are very successful, they do a better job of retaining those students and their graduation rates may tend to be a bit better when [the institutions] are able to support them in that way,” she said.
The overlooking of Native Americans’ feelings towards land and historical terms such as “boomer” and “sooner” could be both “societal and institutional,” Weryackwe said.
Weryackwe would not be opposed to changing “Boomer Sooner,” he said.
Weryackwe also wrote an opinion piece on the website, “Native News Online,” on the historical context of these words in which he told the story of when his daughter asked him what the word “sooner” meant.
“When I answered her honestly she asked why so many Indians support a team that celebrates this history. I had to tell her that the situation was complicated, but [I was] very proud that she was already questioning this reality,” according to the article by Weryackwe.
Since that instance, his article said he now only buys OU apparel that does not have the words “boomer” or “sooner” on it. He said he thinks discussions should begin about the words and their historical meaning.
“I know it’s a sensitive term for me, and I think if we talked about it and made it sensitive in other people’s eyes, that would help,” he said. “I would be very diplomatic about it.”
