Soon, the viral clip donned a nickname — the “Sobbing Sooner.” The Israels recall ESPN or Sports Illustrated using it as their “Picture of the Week.” That’s when it really took off.
A Longhorn fan promptly sold T-shirts featuring Jonah’s crying face. Posters were created. Virtually overnight, what began as an Internet sensation turned into a nightmare.
It escalated so far that the Israel family hired a lawyer. They sent out cease-and-desist letters to halt T-shirt production. An ESPN lawyer generously helped remove some online content including the original video.
But nothing on the Internet disappears completely – especially from people’s memories. Most of Jonah’s friends, and enemies, couldn’t stop talking about it at school.
“If I could erase any memories from my life, most of it would be from middle school,” Jonah said. “That was right when I was hitting puberty and right when I was figuring out who I am, discovering girls and everything. I couldn’t even talk to a girl back then because that’s what they knew me as.”
Logan Watenpaugh, a childhood friend of Jonah’s, said his peers used the video as ammunition.
“I remember people would always say, ‘Hey, don’t cry about it,’ whenever something happened to him in sports or something,” Watenpaugh said. “They’d always make the little crying face at him.”
Jonah dealt with relentless bullies in middle school. He said most times he walked into a computer lab at school, each screensaver had been changed to his picture.
“One time, a kid he used to fight with in middle school went and printed off a stack full of [the picture] and handed them out at school,” Eli said. “He put them up on walls. That was definitely where it went too far.”
The Israels’ strong loyalty to OU never wavered. Jonah and his family attended the 2006-07 Fiesta Bowl the same year, but Jonah shaved his head and sported Dallas Cowboy garb out of fear of being noticed.
“Jonah was like, ‘Will there be cameras? Where are we sitting? Who are we going to see?’ He wore Cowboys stuff…because he’s so afraid somebody is going to see him,” his mom said.
Jonah said he still can’t go long without hearing about the Sobbing Sooner. One year, he watched as the Longhorn cheerleaders held up his crying face on posters during College GameDay. Longhorn buddies saw the picture blown up on a freshman orientation PowerPoint.
In an attempt to turn it into something positive, Cathy wrote a letter to Bob Stoops a few years back. Stoops answered.
“I’m sitting at home and my mom hands me a letter, and it’s from the office of Bob Stoops. … Me, my mom, my dad and Eli all went to a closed practice up there three weeks before the season,” Jonah said. “We were the only people there. … We got to meet Blake Bell and some other players.”
