Pioneer Football Alumni Profile: Tom Cole

Tom Cole '71, Congressman-4th District, OK

Junior defensive lineman Matt Medrano is spending his summer in Washington, DC, interning for United States Congressman Tom Cole, of Oklahoma's 4th District.  Cole is a member of the Pioneer Football family as well, having played for the Pioneers from 1967-70.  He was a member of an undefeated freshman team in 1967, and enjoyed winning seasons in both 1969 and 1970.  It's great to have a current Pioneer working for a former one, and I've asked Tom to write of his experiences as he got into politics.  Here's what he had to say:

I left Grinnell with the intention of being a history professor. I was a far better scholar than football player, winning both the Thomas Payne scholarship which goes to the outstanding senior history student at Grinnell and a Thomas Watson Fellowship for a year of independent study abroad. While I eventually got my Ph.D and was a Fulbright scholar at Queen Mary College at the University of London, my life turned in a different direction. Thanks to my mom, who served three terms in the Oklahoma State House, three in the State Senate and a stint as the mayor of our hometown in Moore Oklahoma, I wandered into politics almost by accident.

Starting with her first winning House race in '78 I began running campaigns. Frankly I found they reminded me of team sports, something I always loved. Indeed a watch party is a lot like a locker room after a hard fought game. People have come together and cooperated to achieve an objective. The bonding that goes on in that common endeavor reminded me of of the way I felt in high school and college after a game or a season. I loved the folks I had fought and toiled with and I usually came to respect my competitors, too. They had gone through the same experience. And, in politics like sports, they do keep score and there are winners and losers. But in either victory or defeat you learn valuable lessons and form lifelong friendships.  

Over the years I have played this game from just about every angle. I have been a campaign staffer, worked for a congressman, served as a state party staffer and as a state chairman, sat in the state senate in Oklahoma and served as Secretary of State, on two occasions I was the top staffer at two of the major GOP national political campaign committees, I was a very successful consultant and I still own a piece of the successful firm I helped to found 26 years ago. Of course the last 13 years the Fourth District of Oklahoma and the House of Representatives has been my focus. It has been a great ride. But the habits, the attitudes and the lessons I learned on football fields had more to do with whatever success I have had in politics than anything I ever learned in a classroom.