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One of America’s great sporting institutions, college football, kicks off tonight. But you wouldn’t know it.

Something like its basketball brothers, who open the season not in the spotlight but in the shadows, football slips in without making a sound. Six major-college games will be played tonight, including some decent matchups.

North Carolina State at South Carolina. Wake Forest at Baylor. Oregon State at Stanford. Not exactly Ohio State-Michigan, but not bad ballgames.

Yet where is the revelry? Where is the celebration? Even Saturday’s full lineup of games seems void of the party befitting the end of a long, hot summer with no football.

Only two sports launch their seasons with a boom, and baseball isn’t one of them. Baseball once began with a carnival. Parades and parties and opening pitches by presidents. Cincinnati, the oldest of baseball towns, was the traditional season opener. But now, tradition has been trumped, with games opening somewhere on Sunday night, and this season even almost a week before, with games in Japan. Japan!

The only two sports that trumpet their arrival are the NFL and NASCAR. NASCAR cuts out all the preliminaries by going straight to the Daytona 500, the great American race. And the NFL has embraced its product by spotlighting an opener. The NFL season now begins on a Thursday night, with a marquee matchup and a street party and a loud pronouncement that all pretenders can step aside. Our nation’s favorite pastime has arrived.

College football opens its season the way a poor hosts throws a party. Sends out a form letter without making personal contact. College football’s marquee time slot has become Labor Day, with a Monday night matchup of powers. Miami-Florida State held that slot for several years but backed out. This year, it’s UCLA-Tennessee, which isn’t half bad.

But why not set up a showdown on Thursday night? Why not ask Missouri-Illinois or Alabama-Clemson to move their game up a couple of days and take the national spotlight. Throw a party. Both those games this year are in big cities (St. Louis and Atlanta) on neutral fields. Have the world’s biggest tailgate today in Atlanta or St. Louis. Play a game the whole nation is waiting. Even huge games sometimes get lost on a Saturday, because there are so many games. A Thursday night season opener won’t.

Some schools are loath to move games off Saturdays because of campus traditions, but these games already are off campus. And some schools don’t mind playing Thursdays.

Let’s celebrate Opening Day. Let’s celebrate college football. Don’t let the sport come in like a lamb.

Someone the other day asked me to run a list of my suggested sports books. I did a quick check and realized I was better off compartmentalizing the list. Today, baseball.

The majority of great sports books are baseball-based. Here are the 10 best baseball books I’ve read. Maybe I’ve forgotten a jewel, or something I read 30 years ago and no longer have a copy, but this list is pretty complete:

10. Clemente, by David Maraniss. A superb biography of Roberto Clemente, the great Pittsburgh Pirate and the icon of Puerto Rico.

9. Baseball Managers, by Bill James. As you will soon see, I believe James to be more than the best baseball writer around. I believe him to be the best baseball mind in America. This book analyzes managers in ways that will amaze you.

8. The Armchair Book of Baseball, edited by John Thorn. This anthology has all kinds of great writing, from magazine stories to poems.

7. Babe, by Robert W. Creamer. A no-holding-back biography of Babe Ruth, who lived an adventure matched by few Americans.

6. Ball Four, by Jim Bouton. Forty years later and still packs a punch. You will laugh out loud at Bouton’s irreverant look at the game he loves.

5. Joe DiMaggio: A Hero’s Life, by Richard Ben Cramer. If you never understood DiMaggio’s grip on the America of two or three generations past, you will after reading this. You will also come to believe that the great American hero was the great American jerk.

4. Politics of Glory, by Bill James. A rousing look at the Baseball Hall of Fame. How it works, who belongs in, who doesn’t belong in, how it could be better. Sounds interesting enough, but trust me. It’s more than interesting. It’s fascinating. James’ stories of Junior Stephens, who you probably heard of, and Jerry Priddy, who you probably haven’t, will enthrall you.

3. The Glory of Their Times, by Lawrence Ritter. A simple, simple technique — transcribing the memories of ballplayers from the early days of 20th century baseball — brings the game to life.

2. Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract, by you know who. Every page is a treasure. James breaks down baseball decade by decade, making the history easy to understand. Then comes the funnest baseball read possible. Ranking the top 100 players at each position, with essays, some short, some not, on each player. Don’t ever let anyone tell you James is a stat geek. His observations and writings are funny and insightful.

1. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn. Fabulous writing, fabulous subject (the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1952-53), fabulous premise (catching up with the graying stars of 20 years before).

Anything I write about the NBA nickname only spurs more talk about nicknames. The good stuff I get from emails, I share. But sometimes, people pick up the phone and to tell me live what they think.

I got seven phone calls today from people suggesting nicknames, and to be honest, I forgot what one of them suggested. But the other six I wrote down. Some have been discussed before.

Chiefs, which I can’t endorse, since the Kansas City football team has it, and if you’re going to copy another major-league franchise’s name, it needs to be a ballteam on the other side of the country. KC is not that far away.

Okies, which I can’t endorse, since it would offend at least half the Oklahomans who still see it as a derisive term from the Dust Bowl. And the other half thinks it’s silly.

Sky. Oklahoma City Sky. Sorry, but it makes you run back to Thunder.

Arrows. Not awful, but not very good. I don’t see it as being germane to Oklahomans.

Mustangs. Good. Very good. It’s not going to win, but I like it. Good and solid. Ties in with the horse industry and with the Ford Center. Excellent option.

But a new nominee has arrived, which has no chance of winning but is at least interesting. Wrath. Oklahoma City Wrath. Singular. Abstract. Everything a nickname is not supposed to be. But it ties in with John Steinbeck and makes you think. I don’t vote for Wrath. But it’s not the worst name on the list.

Another week of emails, and lots of discussion about Bob Stoops. And other topics.

Colleen says too much Bob Stoops and not enough Olympics. “I am an OU graduate and an OU football season ticket holder for many years but even I say ‘enough already!’ I think you have devoted way too many pages in the last two weeks to OU football stories with every detail of coaches’ lives. I am expressing my disagreement with the choices of stories when I would have appreciated more stories about the Olympic sports and athletes. There has been a lot of TV coverage of the Olympics but some of the minor sports have not been featured. Such sports as shooting, archery, fencing, wrestling, synchronized swimming etc. are sports in which many Oklahomans are participants in amateur arenas. Please cover a wider range of sports and do not concentrate so acutely on college football and especially OU football.

Well, I appreciate all suggestions, but if we cut back on OU football to make room for archery and fencing, we’ll soon be cutting back on things like employees.

Jim, an OSU fan, did not appreciate the Stoops series. “This endless love affair with a favorite son from a dying rust belt city that seems to go on forever in the paper confuses me on many levels. Purists like myself, and if Bob were given truth serum, he would agree with me I’m sure, that the one national championship he is credited with leaves a sour taste in his mouth since 66 percent of the starting 22 plus two kickers, were recruited by Boo (Blake). Eddie Sutton was so quick to point out, many, many times, that his early success was in great part the result of the great talent that was left by Leonard (Hamilton). Why is Bob Stoops, after a decade of not winning a national title on his own, so loved and revered? Why the weeklong adoration? It’s like Obama in the press. In the quest of coaching to the standards of UO football (national titles), he pales in comparison to legends like Bud and Barry, yet he seems to be equally if not more revered by the Kool-aid masses. It amazes me. Think about it. After his first 10 years Mike Gundy will have just as many national titles while coaching his recruited players as Bob will have. Mike won’t play for any like Bob has, but he’ll have just as many.”

Jim actually had a lot of other creative lines, but I’ve got to condense this post somewhere. All I’ll say in response is that anyone who thinks John Blake deserves partial credit for OU’s national title would say that FDR should share his presidential legacy with Herbert Hoover, because without the Great Depression, where would Roosevelt have been?

OSU fans also wrote about my take on the Cowboys’ home schedule, which lacks meat past Bedlam. Josh, a self-proclaimed OSU psycho, is one of my favorite readers. Always makes a good point, even when he wants to disagree. “I read your blog about the difficulty of OSU selling tickets because of a weak schedule. I am gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there for one simple reason - timing. The OSU Big 12 home schedule this season is probably the weakest it will be in the four-year rotation. It might be overkill to go the Buffs route and schedule ourselves into mediocrity because of our Big 12 rotation. In 2009 we’ll host Georgia, Texas, Colorado, Missouri and, the way it looks right now, Tech. N.C. State, Washington State, Air Force, Arizona and Clemson all appear on future non-conference slates for the Pokes. If the teams remain at a similar strength, the next time this schedule rolls around in 2012, it should be much more enticing with a better non-conference.”

Good points - and that was my point. Next year’s OSU home schedule looks very good. But that doesn’t help sell tickets in 2008 and it won’t help sell tickets in 2012 when Iowa State and Baylor are back in Stillwater with assorted non-conference rumdums.

G.G. also chimed in on the OSU schedule, saying athletic director Mike Holder “has already sold more season tickets then last year. He is already showing his decision was a success. As the team continues to win, the stadium will fill. I think you need to give it time. In regards to OU having a better home schedule??? Wow, I don’t see it…”

G.G. also makes some good points. But no one really wants to address my main theme, which was that OSU might have to upgrade its non-conference to entice more fans. That’s precisely what Colorado has done. OSU’s non-conference schedules isn’t bad. But it’s not attractive. Houston and Troy are decent teams, but not decent draws. I know everyone in college east of USC is dumbing down their schedule, but the price is slow ticket sales. As for OU’s home schedule, it’s clearly better. Iowa State is OSU’s third-best draw; the Cyclones clearly are a bigger name than Houston or Troy. Kansas, which won the Orange Bowl eight months ago, is OU’s third-best draw.

Bob wants to talk Big 12 championship game, 2007. “I do not like Chase Daniel. He is a big crybaby that seems to blame everyone but himself. Is there any chance that we could have the championship game in San Antonio every year? What a great place to have a game.”

I don’t know what it has to do with anything, but Daniel had lunch with Warren Buffet the other day. And no, no chance of San Antonio hosting every year. Jerry Jones and the Big 12 North schools will have something to say about that.

There was some Olympic talk. Leonard wants me to consider Edwin Moses for my list of the 10 greatest Olympians. “He won gold in 1976, would have won another in ‘80 (had Carter not discovered the Commies at the Khyber Pass) and took his last gold in ‘84. Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals, 127 consecutive races and set the world record in the event four times. Moreover, he gave back to the sport. In 1988, he designed and created amateur sport’s first random out-of-competition drug testing program.”

Edwin Moses is a total stud, but his achievement was defined by all those victories between Olympics. Which doesn’t make him an epic Olympian.

Craig took exception to my supporting Usain Bolt’s antics in the 100 meters. “You guys think it is charming Bolt was goofing off? He is a showboat. Phelps won one of his golds because he kept trying and even did a half stroke while his competitor was gliding the last few feet. It won the Gold for Phelps and won over my respect. That is the Olympic spirit. It would have been funny as hell if someone had blew past Bolt as he was showing off.”

If someone had blown past Bolt as he was showing off, they would have been running 74 mph. I say anyone celebrating victory - and still setting a world record - deserves our admiration. Not our condemnation.

Jeff is upset with CBS’ Dan Dierdorf “for referring to Adrian Peterson as AP. Dierdorf surely knows (at least he should know) that Peterson is called AD, short for All Day. Dierdorf had a great opportunity Saturday evening to tell the story of Peterson’s father giving him the nickname as a child because he could run ‘all day.’ CBS and their color announcer blew it.”

Well, I can’t disagree. Dierdorf should have known better. But as nicknames go, I never have liked AD. All Day Peterson sounds a lot better. Sort of like Too Tall Jones. TT Jones would have sounded silly.

Craig wrote about my Tony Casillas column. “I wanted to pass along an incident involving Tony Casillas from back in about 1991. I had an employee who, at 48 years of age, came down with leukemia. Gary was going on permanent disability. He was also a gung ho ex-marine, and one of my salespeople. He wanted to go out and celebrate one last time at a local nightspot in Oklahoma City. It was the old Cajuns Wharf and it had just changed into a country music/ dance place, if I recall. I noticed Tony Casillas there and struck up casual conversation. While we were talking, Tony asked me if I was there alone, because he was there alone. I replied, I was out for one last fling with a guy who was dying with leukemia. To my surprise, Tony said he wanted to meet Gary and shake his hand for serving his country as a Marine. Gary was only about 5-9, 170 pounds, but he had these huge vise grip hands. Gary used to shake hands with people and make them cringe. Tony and I walked over to Gary and I introduced the two. I will never forget how gracious Tony was that night to Gary.”

I love these kinds of stories. Keep them coming.

The announcement that Kansas State and Iowa State will play in Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium in 2009 and 2010 means that every Big 12 school except Nebraska has committed to playing a neutral-site game.

Not so long ago, OU-Texas at the Cotton Bowl was it for Big 12 neutral-site games. Now look what’s happened.

* Kansas and Missouri play in Kansas City this year for the second straight season.

* Colorado and Colorado State play in Denver next Sunday for the ninth time in the last 11 seasons.

* Texas A&M has signed a contract with Arkansas to play in Arlington, Texas, for 10 years starting in 2009.

* Oklahoma State and Texas Tech have agreed to play neutral-site games but still are negotiating whether they will occur in Dallas’ Cotton Bowl or Arlington’s new Dallas Cowboys stadium.

* Baylor is scheduled to play Notre Dame in New Orleans in 2012; the game originally was scheduled for Arlington, but Big 12 television contracts forbade NBC, which owned the rights because it’s Notre Dame’s home game, from televising a Big 12 team inside Big 12 territory.

And even Nebraska has tried the neutral site gig, playing OSU at Arrowhead Stadium in 1998.

The money is too much to pass up for most schools. We see the same thing happening in other conferences, including the SEC. Arkansas is playing A&M. Georgia and Florida play every year in Jacksonville. Alabama is playing Clemson in Atlanta.  There’s probably some more I don’t know about.

OSU is pushing hard for a season-ticket surge as the home opener approaches, Sept. 6 against Missouri State. But the Cowboys have a fundamental problem; expensive tickets with a squishy home schedule.

OSU season tickets cost $419 or $249 for the end zone, which is either $60 or $36 per game. Not outrageous. But here is OSU’s home schedule: Houston, Missouri State, Troy, Texas A&M, Baylor, Iowa State and OU.

Rank those games in attractiveness. 1. Bedlam; 2. A&M; 3. Iowa State, I suppose; 4. Houston; 5. Troy; 6. Baylor; 7. Missouri State. Think about that. Iowa State, which was pretty bad last year and not expected to be any better this season, is one of the better games at Boone Pickens Stadium.

Might OSU have to do what Colorado has done? Might OSU have to suck it up and schedule better? Colorado this year is playing West Virginia, Florida State and Colorado State. The Buffs can’t get away with playing too many rumdums, because their fans will stay away.

OSU has beefed up its schedule some, but is it enough? Doubtful. There is no reason why the Cowboys shouldn’t play Tulsa home-and-home, other than TU took to winning some of those games at Skelly Stadium in the 1990s.

OSU also might need to schedule two foes a year from BCS conferences. The Cowboys’ current scheduling philosophy is good for bowl qualification but bad for business.

OSU might average 45,000 fans per game, which would be a solid upgrade from last season. But to make a big leap, the Cowboys might have to address their schedule.

Just for fun, let’s look at OU’s home schedule. Chattanooga, Cincinnati, TCU, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas Tech. Now, we’ll rank them. 1. Tech; 2. Nebraska; 3. Kansas; 4. Cincinnati; 5. TCU; 6. Chattanooga. Now that’s a good home schedule. The second-least attractive home game is against a school that has won in its last two trips to Owen Field, both in the last 12 years. A school that five times this decade has reached double-digit victories and has won bowl games three straight years. 

One of Bob Stoops’ big detractors emailed me this week during our Stoops @10 series, wanting to know why we didn’t list the bowl records of Stoops, Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer.

Well, the reason we didn’t list bowl records is we didn’t have room to list every conceivable stat of the legendary coaches. We didn’t list their records against Texas, either, which would have elevated Stoops to the top.

But it’s all interesting, so I will provide the numbers here.

Bowl records: Stoops is 4-5, including 2-4 in BCS bowls; Wilkinson was 6-2, all eight games coming in the Sugar or Orange bowls; Switzer was 8-5, including 6-3 in major bowls.

Vs. Texas: Stoops is 6-3, Switzer was 9-5-2 and Wilkinson was 9-8.

Vs. Nebraska: Stoops is 4-1, Switzer was 12-5 and Wilkinson was 14-3. Of course, Nebraska is not a great barometer. The Huskers weren’t competitive through much of the ’40s and ’50s. And before you say that the Huskers of the Stoops era weren’t legit, either, remember that two of Stoops’ victories came in 1 vs. 2 or 1 vs. 3 matchups, and another was in a Big 12 title game.

So, Stoops clearly lags behind Switzer and Wilkinson in bowl success. But he has the best record against Texas.  And Stoops’ record against Nebraska is snuggled tightly between Wilkinson and Switzer, who both produced against the Cornhuskers.

Every Thursday on Page 2 of The Oklahoman sports section, I do a list. Best wishbone quarterbacks in history. Best Oklahoman performances in the World Series. Best streaks in major tournament golf. That kind of thing.

My list this Thursday is the 10 best Olympians in history. And it’s the most difficult list I’ve ever produced. I usually spend a lot of research time picking the top 10, but ranking any 10 comes easy. I have no problem with the courage of my convictions.  I can make a decision, based on solid reasons, and stick with it.

This time, I’ve waffled more than IHOP. I had difficulty cutting the list to 10, then I had difficulty picking No. 1.

First, the list:

10. Paavo Nurmi, Finnish distance runner

9. Larysa Latynina, Soviet gymnast

8. Jesse Owens, American sprinter

7. Mark Spitz, American swimmer

6. Emil Zatopek, Czech distance runner

5. Birgit Fischer, German kayaker

4. Eric Heiden, American speedskater

3. Michael Phelps, American swimmer

2. Nadia Comaneci, Romanian gymnast

1. Carl Lewis, American sprinter.

The list was incredibly difficult. How does Al Oerter not make it, after winning the discus in four straight Olympiads? Or Bjorn Daehlie, the Norwegian cross-country skiier who won 12 medals, eight gold, in three Olympiads. Or Sonja Henie, as big an Olympic superstar as ever produced, with three straight golds in figure skating from 1928-36?

But the two Olympians I most regretted leaving off the list were Greg Louganis and Steve Redgrave.

Redgrave, a British rower, is the only athlete to win gold medals in five straight Olympiads, 1984-00. Ultimately, I left Redgrave off the list because his golds weren’t won in singles. He had partners and teammates en route to his golds.

No such indictment of Louganis, the great American diver. Diving offers two gold medals for each gender; Louganis swept both golds in 1984 and 1988. In 1976, Louganis won silver in the tower diving. And in 1980, Louganis was favored to win both, but the U.S. boycott negated his chance. That’s an impressive resume’. But in this discussion, you can’t give Louganis credit for what he might have done.

But a far tougher decision was who to pick No. 1. I went back and forth between the top three, and really I considered Heiden, too. The single most dominant athlete ever at an Olympiad clearly is not Phelps, but Heiden. He won five gold medals, all individual since speedskating has no relay, ranging in distance from 500 meters to 10,000 meters.

But the other three athletes won gold at multiple Olympiads, so Heiden was relegated to fourth.

At first, I had Phelps No. 1. I then decided Comaneci deserved it, because no athlete ever has been better than Nadia at Montreal, and no athlete has so transformed an Olympic sport. But as the day wore on, I settled on Lewis No. 1.

Phelps is beneficiary of some quirky swimming traditions. Mainly, multiple gold medals handed out in races in which swimmers are not allowed to go as fast as they can. The butterfly, the backstroke and the breaststroke really are just ways to hand out more medals. Track does not produce races in which runners are required to run backwards, but swimming gives out gold to backstrokers.

Anyway, Carl Lewis won the long jump in four straight Olympiads, which is a feat worthy of Al Oerter. But Lewis also won the 100 and 200 meters in the same Olympiad, 1984, the 100 in world record time, which is a feat worthy of Usain Bolt. Lewis also won the 100 in 1988 (courtesy of Ben Johnson’s doping transgression) and won two 400-meter relay gold medals.

Single-Olympiad excellence and multiple-Olympiad success. That’s the requirement, and that’s exactly what Lewis did. Of course, Phelps did, too. He won six golds in 2004 and eight in Beijing, so he belongs on Mount Olympics, too.

But I went with Lewis because the track golds are a little more legit than the swimming golds. And I put Nadia No. 2, ahead of Phelps, because despite the hype and frenzy accompanying Phelps, nothing could compare to the way Nadia transfixed the world in 1976. She also was great in 1980, winning two golds, though not the all-around, in a squishy decision.

Did I pick correctly? I don’t know. This was the toughest list to rank I’ve ever done.

In our Stoops @10 series, we’re running a story Friday on the stability of Bob Stoops’ staff. No assistant on Stoops’ staff has been fired. Few coaches can say that. University of Washington coach Tyrone Willingham certainly can’t.

Willingham fired Bob Simmons last December. Simmons will not be on the Husky staff that duels OU on Sept. 13. Simmons spent three years with Willingham in Seattle and three years on Willingham’s Notre Dame staff. Yet Simmons and defensive coordinator Kent Baer were made scapegoats after Washington’s 4-9 season in 2007.

Seattle media reported Simmons’ firing as unexpected. But Willingham’s move was not unique. Sacrificing assistants to appease disgruntled administrators and boosters is common in college football.

Simmons has not returned to college football and at age 59 might not.

Watching the Olympics the other night, something interesting struck me. This is a small, small world.

I was watching the women’s 100 meters or 200 meters or some track event, and the runners were being introduced, and like all Olympic races, they came from all over. And it hit me.

In 1976, I watched the Montreal Olympics on ABC and took in every telecast. Huge, huge fan. That Olympiad included two females from another hemisphere who competed at Montreal, and who now I know personally. Without so much as leaving the county.

Nadia Comaneci, you know about. I don’t claim to know Nadia well, but since her 1996 marriage to Bart Conner, I’ve gotten to know her a little. Bart, of course, is one of the all-time great people, a man of unsurpassed charm. If you know him, he makes you think you know him well. And Nadia is usually along for the ride. They make their home in Norman, and you can run into her at the dry cleaner or the grocery store.

I know Ukpe Mbong even better. Ukpe was a Nigerian sprinter who made the Olympic finals in the 200-meter dash. She placed seventh at Montreal. In 1982, she and her husband came to the U.S. for school, and they stayed and raised a family. I taught two of their four kids in Sunday School at Lakeside Church of God in Norman, and we still attend church together. I saw her Sunday.

The world is a small place, with big adventures. The Olympics prove that like no other event.