Boomer Sooner

"Boomer Sooner" is the fight song for the University of Oklahoma (OU). The lyrics were written in 1905 by Arthur M. Alden, an OU student and son of a local jeweler in Norman. The tune is taken from "Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale University (which was itself borrowed from an 1898 song called "La Hoola Boola" by Robert Allen (Bob) Cole and Billy Johnson). A year later, an additional section was appended, borrowed from the University of North Carolina's "I'm a Tar Heel Born".

Origin of the lyrics

The phrase "Boomer Sooner" refers to the Land Run of 1889, in which the land around the modern university was settled.Boomers were people who campaigned for the lands to be opened (or tried to enter the lands) before passage of the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889. Sooners were land thieves who settled before the lands were officially opened, giving them an unfair advantage on finding, fencing, and claiming farm land. If the charge of early entry was proven, they would lose their claimed land.