My name is Jason White But This Was the Year of the Dub
The Nickname
It all began the final day of my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma. I was beginning my 1 and a halfish hour drive down I44 to my parents home in Sand Springs and stopped for gas on my way out of town. It was a hole in the wall gas station on the corner of Flood and Main and it would be the last time I saw the place. When I returned after the summer break it had been partially demolished. The corner would be vacant after the pumps were uprooted and the land cleared for 8 years in a struggling downtown until MidFirst Bank began construction and filled the its spot. The station was a dying breed with no pay-at-the-pump option. I probably fake cursed under my breath thinking that I didn’t have any options to pay-at-the-pump picturing the next two stations I would cross paths with. They had the same set-up. Flood Ave/US 77 - the last stretch of road within civilization to discover convenience.
“Better get this over with I thought”.
The whole prepay system stresses me out in a strange way. Walking all the way into the store and estimating how much gas to get feels wrong to me. It should be easier this day-in-age. I try to minimize anything that resembles a chore, which includes my stops for gas so I want to fill it all the way up. The more gas in the tank; the longer I’ll go without another stop, but the prepay system makes me play it safe and I feel like a weiner. Hopefully the pump works. Stations without prepay don’t have reliable pumps and can be lazy with their signage or plastic bags over the pump nozzles. Take care to not go over your specified price too. You never know if the pump has a system of automatically stopping at the agreed price or if a slight mistake will leave you digging under your car seats for spare change or scanning your check card for 3 more cents to make up the difference and a long walk of shame back into the store. In my mother’s case it would be writing a check for the difference. She cannot be convinced that a bank card is better.
The bell rang as I opened the door, my fingers crossed at my side. There were two older men in the store, the kind of guys you’d expect to be in a place like this without prepay. They were country guys but the sprawling suburbia had enveloped them over the years and they refused to compromise. One was behind the counter with a newspaper and the other in the corner with a cigarette. They were talking about OU football.
OU football is important. I believe this. Most everyone in the county believes it. And a huge chunk of the state believes this OSU once had Barry Sanders but that was about all they had going for them. These guys believed OU football was important. Spring practices had been in full swing. The team had just come off of a suprise National Championship, one to remember. Our Heisman runner-up stud quarterback Josh Huepel had graduated and the race was on to fill the chair. Nate Hybel (no relation to Huepel) and Jason White (no relation to me) were in a tight race. Hybel was a blue chip recruit from Georgia and a NFL style quarterback, an accurate pocket thrower. Jason White was from a local small town and was known for his scrambling.
I approached the counter.
“I don’t know what to think of this quarterback race?” said the man in the corner his ash slowing crumbling to the floor.
The clerk looked at me. “15 dollars on 2 please,” I said. I put my check card on the counter. Gas was cheaper then. These weren’t quite the glory days when a gallon of gas was cheaper than a small bottle of water, but they were close.
“My votes are all on Hybels,” said the clerk. “This... what’s his name,” looking at the paper again, “Jason White, he don’t have what it takes. Quarterbacks need to..”
He abruptly stopped as he had looked at my card and had seen the name Jason White on it. He scanned it and returned it to the desk in silence with his eyes down. I retrieved it.
“Thanks guys” I said as I exited and chucked to myself as much as a guy by himself can laugh. I gassed up without going over and couldn’t wait be among a crowd to tell the tale, the first of many stories to come until the weird world I lived in could put a face to the name. As I drove I wondered: how embarrassing was it for that guy? Was he ashamed? Would he consider it his “Most Embarrassing Moment”? I pictured him sharing the story with his next customer, or at a church potluck. I wondered if his wife would scold him to keep his opinions to himself around customers. I was sure, though, that he would use the phrase, “I ‘bout soiled my drawars” when talking about it. I imagine as well that he remember this as the moment that jinxed his business to all but ruins in a matter of weeks.
Nate Hybel won the starting position but it turned out that he wasn’t quite all he was hybelled up to be. He didn’t do well under pressure. If he was chased out of the pocket which happened often, he was a disaster. In an early non-conference blow-out (which would have a new definition in a few years) Jason White came in to finish the game. “He’s got wheels!” was my first thought when I actually saw him play. My game-day crew and I quickly became Jason White fans. “Put in Jdub! Put in Jdub!” we would chant watching Hybel sacked again and again.
Jdub. It had a ring to it. Did I make it up? I think so. Good one, Jason. I’ve always wanted a good nickname.... Something other than JC Panties which Scott Norvell named me as a kid, Dodo from my little sister who could not pronounce Jason for a few years, Jas, the lazy man’s Jason, or simply J, the worst one of all. J could be anything, Jeremy, Justin, Jed or Jackass. Anything but J, please. I dropped some hints with my gang during a break between plays. I didn’t really think it would catch on, but it did. Slowly it infiltrated the circles of my life. I was a 20 year old with little direction or vision in life. I was figuring out who I was, “finding myself”, “coming of age”. The cement that would become me would begin to solidify within that name, “Jdub”, that year.
These stories are about that time, my sophomore year of college as best as I can remember them.
The Nickname
It all began the final day of my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma. I was beginning my 1 and a halfish hour drive down I44 to my parents home in Sand Springs and stopped for gas on my way out of town. It was a hole in the wall gas station on the corner of Flood and Main and it would be the last time I saw the place. When I returned after the summer break it had been partially demolished. The corner would be vacant after the pumps were uprooted and the land cleared for 8 years in a struggling downtown until MidFirst Bank began construction and filled the its spot. The station was a dying breed with no pay-at-the-pump option. I probably fake cursed under my breath thinking that I didn’t have any options to pay-at-the-pump picturing the next two stations I would cross paths with. They had the same set-up. Flood Ave/US 77 - the last stretch of road within civilization to discover convenience.
“Better get this over with I thought”.
The whole prepay system stresses me out in a strange way. Walking all the way into the store and estimating how much gas to get feels wrong to me. It should be easier this day-in-age. I try to minimize anything that resembles a chore, which includes my stops for gas so I want to fill it all the way up. The more gas in the tank; the longer I’ll go without another stop, but the prepay system makes me play it safe and I feel like a weiner. Hopefully the pump works. Stations without prepay don’t have reliable pumps and can be lazy with their signage or plastic bags over the pump nozzles. Take care to not go over your specified price too. You never know if the pump has a system of automatically stopping at the agreed price or if a slight mistake will leave you digging under your car seats for spare change or scanning your check card for 3 more cents to make up the difference and a long walk of shame back into the store. In my mother’s case it would be writing a check for the difference. She cannot be convinced that a bank card is better.
The bell rang as I opened the door, my fingers crossed at my side. There were two older men in the store, the kind of guys you’d expect to be in a place like this without prepay. They were country guys but the sprawling suburbia had enveloped them over the years and they refused to compromise. One was behind the counter with a newspaper and the other in the corner with a cigarette. They were talking about OU football.
OU football is important. I believe this. Most everyone in the county believes it. And a huge chunk of the state believes this OSU once had Barry Sanders but that was about all they had going for them. These guys believed OU football was important. Spring practices had been in full swing. The team had just come off of a suprise National Championship, one to remember. Our Heisman runner-up stud quarterback Josh Huepel had graduated and the race was on to fill the chair. Nate Hybel (no relation to Huepel) and Jason White (no relation to me) were in a tight race. Hybel was a blue chip recruit from Georgia and a NFL style quarterback, an accurate pocket thrower. Jason White was from a local small town and was known for his scrambling.
I approached the counter.
“I don’t know what to think of this quarterback race?” said the man in the corner his ash slowing crumbling to the floor.
The clerk looked at me. “15 dollars on 2 please,” I said. I put my check card on the counter. Gas was cheaper then. These weren’t quite the glory days when a gallon of gas was cheaper than a small bottle of water, but they were close.
“My votes are all on Hybels,” said the clerk. “This... what’s his name,” looking at the paper again, “Jason White, he don’t have what it takes. Quarterbacks need to..”
He abruptly stopped as he had looked at my card and had seen the name Jason White on it. He scanned it and returned it to the desk in silence with his eyes down. I retrieved it.
“Thanks guys” I said as I exited and chucked to myself as much as a guy by himself can laugh. I gassed up without going over and couldn’t wait be among a crowd to tell the tale, the first of many stories to come until the weird world I lived in could put a face to the name. As I drove I wondered: how embarrassing was it for that guy? Was he ashamed? Would he consider it his “Most Embarrassing Moment”? I pictured him sharing the story with his next customer, or at a church potluck. I wondered if his wife would scold him to keep his opinions to himself around customers. I was sure, though, that he would use the phrase, “I ‘bout soiled my drawars” when talking about it. I imagine as well that he remember this as the moment that jinxed his business to all but ruins in a matter of weeks.
Nate Hybel won the starting position but it turned out that he wasn’t quite all he was hybelled up to be. He didn’t do well under pressure. If he was chased out of the pocket which happened often, he was a disaster. In an early non-conference blow-out (which would have a new definition in a few years) Jason White came in to finish the game. “He’s got wheels!” was my first thought when I actually saw him play. My game-day crew and I quickly became Jason White fans. “Put in Jdub! Put in Jdub!” we would chant watching Hybel sacked again and again.
Jdub. It had a ring to it. Did I make it up? I think so. Good one, Jason. I’ve always wanted a good nickname.... Something other than JC Panties which Scott Norvell named me as a kid, Dodo from my little sister who could not pronounce Jason for a few years, Jas, the lazy man’s Jason, or simply J, the worst one of all. J could be anything, Jeremy, Justin, Jed or Jackass. Anything but J, please. I dropped some hints with my gang during a break between plays. I didn’t really think it would catch on, but it did. Slowly it infiltrated the circles of my life. I was a 20 year old with little direction or vision in life. I was figuring out who I was, “finding myself”, “coming of age”. The cement that would become me would begin to solidify within that name, “Jdub”, that year.
These stories are about that time, my sophomore year of college as best as I can remember them.
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