Sonny Dykes met with the media on Tuesday, including Brian Estridge, "the voice of TCU football."
TCU made Sonny Dykes its 31st head football coach, formally introducing him as Gary Patterson’s successor on Tuesday at Legends Club & Suites in Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Dykes very well could have been the second Dykes to lead the Horned Frogs program had LSU hired TCU’s 28th head coach, Pat Sullivan, in 1994. All that was holding up Sullivan’s move was a buyout clause in his contract with TCU. It could never be resolved, and Sullivan stayed in Fort Worth.
While the drama played out over 10 days in December, TCU athletic director Frank Windegger was drawing up contingency plans.
One of those was Spike Dykes, then the head coach at Texas Tech since 1986.
It was a story I’d heard at the time from former Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Johnny Paul, who didn’t have anything firm other than a gut feeling after talking to Windegger about it. Windegger didn’t confirm or deny that he had talked to Spike about the job if Sullivan bolted to Louisiana.
He never wrote a word about it because he had nothing to go on except a hunch. Windegger’s reaction to the question of whether he had talked to Spike had Paul convinced.
Twenty-seven years later, we received confirmation.
“I do know for a fact that TCU reached out to Spike,” says Rick Dykes, son of Spike, older brother to Sonny and who coached under his father from 1990 – 99. “I was actually in my father’s office when those calls came through. A lot of people felt Pat was going to be the coach at LSU. I’m not sure what [Spike] would have done [had he received an offer]. But that is true.
“Spike always thought TCU was one of the better jobs in the state of Texas. Every year we prepared to play TCU, we thought TCU had as much potential as any job in the state. He felt that way up to the every end. I think Fort Worth and TCU are special places. The potential here is unlimited.”
Spike Dykes died in 2017 at age 79. Only Mike Leach has more wins at Texas Tech than Dykes’ 82. Spike, who was as well known for his down-home West Texas witticisms, was a three-time Southwest Conference coach of the year, an honor he achieved once in the Big 12.
At the time of his talks with Windegger, speculation swirled that Spike did not see eye to eye with Texas Tech athletic director Bob Bockrath.
Spike’s hiring at TCU could have set off a butterfly effect, causing some unmentionables, most notably perhaps ultimately no Dennis Franchione and no Patterson at TCU. And, possibly, no Sonny Dykes, either.
“We used to talk a lot,” Sonny Dykes says, while adding that he had never heard the story about his father and TCU. “He always talked about what a great opportunity he felt like this was. How much success he thought you could have here.
“Probably the best thing I learned from my Dad was that he treated everybody the same. The best player on the team, the worst player on the team … the biggest donor to the guy cleaning the office. Everybody was the same to him. That’s certainly something I’ve tried to emulate in my life. An understanding that everybody is important, and everybody matters. I thought he understood that as well as anybody and demonstrated that as well as anybody could.”
