And then there is the recently released list of the 50 all-time best coaches by the Sporting News magazine, as selected by a panel of 118 Hall of Famers, championship coaches and other experts. Former University of Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer is nowhere to be found on the list, despite winning three NCAA football championships at OU and the Super Bowl as the Dallas Cowboys head coach. The legendary late OU coach Bud Wilkinson made the list at No. 29.

"Switzer still can't get any respect," lamented one of KREF's several on-air talents on a recent Thursday morning.

But that's all part of the banter. And it's always something.

The audience is part of the cast of sports characters broadcast on the newly purchased KREF, formerly known as KNOR, a longtime Norman institution purchased June 29 by Randy Laffoon and veteran broadcaster Casey Vinyard. KNOR was originally licensed in 1949.

The pair have been operating the sports talk-formatted station for the past several months, infusing their energy into the small building on a grassy expanse on East Alameda.

"I had a lot of faith in it as a format that sells product," said Laffoon, who owned and purchased advertising for Norman Cellular on the station. He said sports talk is a foreground format that tends to retain its listeners for a longer period of time.

Vinyard did a six-year stint as the programming director for another area sports radio station, WWLS, the Sports Animal, from 1993 to 1998.

WWLS was a sister station to KNOR/KREF, which changed format to sports Jan 9, 2001.

The WWLS group of stations sold in 1998, with a three-year non-compete contained in the agreement.

Mike Holt is KREF's general manager, with T.J. Perry as programming director. There are 14 employees, now that recruiting specialist James Hale has recently rejoined the eight-member on-air staff.

At KREF, it's the best time of year -- that time of year when the air crackles with talk of the OU football season, the return of OU's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford and several other players who would have otherwise been NFL bound after last season.

Sports news may have a lull in the early part of the summer, but August is electric. And Wednesday, there came a little bit of good sports news for KREF.

Morning announcer Toby Rowland, who also is a KWTV Channel 9 sportscaster, was named sideline reporter for OU's football broadcasts.

The station broadcasts 24 hours a day, live 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., with satellite broadcasts for the balance of the day.

Holt said KREF has a different character from the other top 50 markets.

"This market's driven by OU and (Oklahoma State)," Holt said. "It's truly a caller driven market."

KREF broadcasts OU football coach Bob Stoops' show as well as shows featuring OU men's basketball coach Jeff Capel and OU women's basketball coach Sherri Coale.

The station also broadcasts Norman and Norman North High School football games Thursday and Friday nights.

Overnight and Saturdays they broadcast Fox Sports.

And March through October, it's the St. Louis Cardinal baseball team that's heard many nights of the week.

"We're really driven by the local market," Laffoon said.

Some of the other announcers include Perry, Rusty Olson, Myron Patten of Fox 25, Hale and Tracy Gordon.

Many of the announcers' shifts overlap, with interchange between the hosts.

"It lends itself to a lot of exchange ... and a little more diversity," Holt said.

He said sports are ingrained in the Norman community.

"It doesn't follow the national trend," Holt said.

The national trend is for 70 to 80 percent of a sports talk radio station to be male vs. its female audience.

At KREF, it's closer to a 60-40 ratio.

"We have a lot of women who call the station," he said.

The new KREF looks spiffier than the old musty, smoke-stained radio station for a reason -- it's been repainted, re-carpeted and completely remodeled, with some of the quirky old features preserved.

Like the stairs to nowhere, where a former employee used to have a door so he could walk out of the back door to his recreational vehicle. And the restrooms, with a small sign noting it's the "production room." They didn't tear out walls, but they are now a soothing clean beige.

Virtually all the electronics have been upgraded, including the transmitter signal. It's now engineered to be a cleaner, crisper sound, Holt said.

The 1,000-watt omni directional signal which used to barely cover Norman, now reaches to Shawnee on the east, almost to the Arbuckle Mountains on the south, Chickasha on the west and Guthrie on the north, Holt said. A second station, KADA, at 1230 AM in Ada, is simulcast and reaches Ardmore, McAlester and Atoka.

"For me it's great because everything is brand new and they've really done this the right way," Holt said.

Redundancy is built into the system, which keeps the station on the air when equipment fails.

And they'll be putting in a speaker system so that the live feed can be heard around the station.

Some of the old touches have been preserved too, like the old AP teletype machine and the 1955 Sparta board.

"There's no more razor blades to cut (reel-to-reel) tapes," Holt said.

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Laffoon said KREF staff plans to continue the station's outreach to the community.

They go live at every possible opportunity, and often go out in the community doing remote broadcasts at non-sports related events just to be where the action is.

"Every month we find a unique Norman event," Vinyard said, like Jazz in June. "We aren't going to show up unannounced."

When they're out in the community doing a remote, the machine that connects the announcer to the station is small enough to put in a satchel vs. the old Marti setup that was closer to the size of a suitcase.

And a listener doesn't have to be in this market to hear KREF. They stream audio and video live on www.sportstalk1400.com, where a visitor can type a question to the host on the air. And the live Internet show allows people from out of market to participate as well. A new Web site design is due in about a week.

Laffoon said the station will reflect Norman, which has its own identity.

"We're going to get even more involved in the community," he said.