Donnie Duncan looked frail in December. The shame of it: He was frail.
The former Iowa State coach, Oklahoma assistant and Sooners athletic director was in New York to accept the National Football Foundation’s Legacy Award. The annual NFF dinner is the summit meeting for college football. Even at age 75 and in failing health, Duncan wasn’t going to miss it.
This was his night. You can see part of it here. This was a career achievement award -- a career that continued up until his death Sunday morning. Multiple cancers diminished the man physically, but Duncan was a towering figure right up until his death.
“Achieving that award meant everything to Donnie,” said Virginia assistant Ruffin McNeill, an old friend of Duncan.
Duncan had steely eyes but a kind heart. The power and accomplishments he accumulated were hidden behind a calm demeanor.
At one time, he was named one of the 10 most powerful figures in college sports. As a coach, he accomplished what seems impossible today.
In 1981, Duncan’s Iowa State team was 5-1-1 and ranked No. 11.
Duncan will probably be remembered best and most often as an administrator. He served at Oklahoma as a Barry Switzer assistant from 1973-78 before going to Iowa State.
From 1986-96, he was OU’s AD. During that turbulent time, he oversaw the departure of Switzer following an NCAA investigation. But during those darkest times in 1988, Oklahoma became the first school to play in a major bowl and the NCAA Tournament National Championship.
College athletics was changing, and during that time, Duncan served on the NCAA Research Committee that studied the possibility of a playoff. That was a quarter-century ago, long before there was traction for what we have today.
When it became evident that neither the Big Eight nor Southwest Conference was going to be able to survive on its own, Duncan and former Texas AD DeLoss Dodds ran the point on a new conference -- the Big 12.
“If we’re going to keep up, we need to grow something that is bigger than the Big Eight, bigger than the Southwest Conference,” Dodds recalled telling Duncan. “That’s when the conversation started about the Big 12.”
As the story goes, Dodds and Duncan traveled to New York to meet with advertisers. It seemed there was a market for selling a lot of Chevys in the slice of Americana from Iowa through Texas.
In essence, that is why the Big 12 still exists today. Any conference with Oklahoma (led by Duncan) and Texas (Dodds) was worth investing in.
Duncan’s legacy will live on.