Every Oklahoma Sooners home game for the past 50 years has had the same two faces in the crowd: Bonne and Farooq Karim, a mother and son from Norman who have never missed a kickoff at Owen Field since they started going together in 1975. They walk to the stadium on every game day, arrive early, and wear matching jerseys bearing the number 75 in honor of the year their streak began.
The tradition traces back to a single ticket stub in the old bleachers, according to KFOR, which first reported on the pair's half-century run. Bonne Karim said her seats for that first game together were in the south end zone, in stadium bleachers that no longer exist in that form today. She had transferred to the University of Oklahoma after spending two years at the University of Oregon, where, she noted, Hayward Field was mainly used for running and its football games left the stands half empty — a stark contrast to what she found waiting for her in Norman.
A Championship Season Kicked Off the Streak
The Karims picked a remarkable year to start their tradition. During the 1975 season, head coach Barry Switzer led the Oklahoma Sooners to an 11-1 record and the consensus AP national championship, capped by a 14-6 win over Michigan in the Orange Bowl, according to University of Oklahoma Athletics. It marked the program's fifth national title. That same year, Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium had just finished a $5.7 million expansion that built the west side upper deck and press box, pushing capacity to 71,187 to accommodate the surging crowds drawn by the championship run.
The stadium the Karims first walked into looks nothing like the one they enter today. Following a 2019 aisle-widening renovation, Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium now seats 80,126 fans, making it the largest sports venue in Oklahoma and the 15th-largest on-campus college football facility in the country. The venue originally opened in 1923 with roughly 500 bleacher seats on the east side, a far cry from the sprawling bowl that now hosts roughly 80,000 fans alongside the Karims on any given Saturday.
Game Day Rituals That Never Change
Both Karims graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and their game day routine has stayed remarkably consistent through five decades of roster changes, coaching turnover, and conference realignment. They arrive early every time, watch the players warm up before kickoff, and stick to their food orders: Farooq eats two or three hot dogs before the opening whistle, while Bonne gets cheese pizza. Fans used to be able to walk onto the field after games to collect autographs, and Farooq recalled once receiving a pair of gloves near the tunnel after a game.
Farooq, who has spent more than 30 years as an architect at the Oklahoma firm REES, where he now serves as Vice President and Director of Design, told KFOR that the family's streak feels special even though he knows other longtime fans share similar stories. He said each of the six or seven home games played every season is precious to him. Karim, who was named recipient of the 2021 William Wayne Caudill Award — the highest individual honor given by AIA Central Oklahoma — has also pursued paper art; 405 Magazine reports that he began making assembled art in 2017 and describes the work as calming. The magazine also reports that one of his paper artworks raised $5,500 for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.
Norman's Game Day Landscape Keeps Shifting Around Them
Not every memory from the Karims' streak is about Oklahoma football itself. Farooq said he especially liked games against Nebraska, recalling that the Cornhuskers' traveling fans were amazing to be around on game day, even as visitors in Norman's own stadium.
Fifty years on, the Karims are still navigating a game day environment that keeps changing shape around their unchanging routine. The Sooners enter their 2026 season opener against UTEP on Friday night with an active sellout streak of 169 consecutive regularly scheduled home games. Ahead of the opener, game-day traffic patterns and road closures around the stadium remained part of the changing landscape. According to the City of Norman, Boyd Street will be closed to all traffic between University Boulevard and Jenkins Avenue on game days. Norman also expanded its tailgating options this season, debuting pre-set turnkey tailgating packages along Boyd Lawn through the athletics partner REVELxp, as Hoodline reported in a story on Norman's changing tailgating scene.
None of that has changed how the Karims spend their Saturdays. They plan to attend Oklahoma's season opener against UTEP on Friday night, walking to the stadium together just as they have for every home game since 1975, jerseys numbered 75 and all.
