Sooner Schooner

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Sooner Schooner
The Sooner Schooner being driven by the RUF/NEKS at an OU football game in 2007.
University	University of Oklahoma
Conference	SEC
Description	Conestoga wagon
First seen	September 26, 1964
Related mascot(s)	Boomer and Sooner

The Sooner Schooner is an official mascot of the sports teams of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. Pulled by two white ponies named Boomer and Sooner, it is a scaled-down replica of the Studebaker Conestoga wagon used by settlers of the Oklahoma Territory around the time of the Land Run of 1889. Its name comes from the common term for such wagons ("prairie schooners") and the name for settlers who sneaked into the Territory before it was officially opened for settlement ("Sooners").

The Schooner is maintained and driven by members of the RUF/NEKS, the university's all-male spirit organization, as well as members of the RUF/NEK Lil' Sis, the university's all-female spirit organization. At home football games and bowl games, the Sooner Schooner is driven onto the field in an arc that almost reaches the 50-yard line after every score. A designated member of either the RUF/NEKS or RUF/NEK Lil' Sis drives the schooner onto the field with a member of the opposite club riding as a passenger. Until the late 1980s, it was customary for the schooner's driver to stand up while driving the ponies onto the field after scores, and duck down only an instant before reaching the stadium tunnel parking spot, barely clearing the tunnel ceiling—a practice eventually ended for safety reasons. The Schooner made its debut at Owen Field in 1964, and it became the university's official mascot in 1980.