At the age of 87, Barry Switzer, ‘The King’ of Norman, is unrepentant about himself.

NORMAN, Okla. — Across the street from Oklahoma’s campus, and a mile from the football stadium that bore witness to his legendary career, Barry Switzer sits in his home office at an ornate desk with his name on the front underneath an OU logo. Around him, commemorative footballs line the shelves, mementos of a time when he became known as “The King,” winning three national championships and 12 Big Eight titles.

There’s a replica Lombardi Trophy celebrating the Dallas Cowboys’ 1995 championship in Super Bowl XXX, when Switzer became one of three men — alongside Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll — to win championships in college and the NFL. With the Sooners, he won 66% of his games against ranked teams and battled Tom Osborne’s Cornhuskers and Darrell Royal’s Longhorns — as well as the NCAA — during his career. He doesn’t go down without a fight.

That’s why, on a Friday afternoon before his Sooners play their first SEC game against Tennessee, Barry Switzer isn’t thinking about the Vols as much as he’s contemplating his own future.

“Last days of life, it says here,” Switzer says as he picks up a pamphlet from his desk and reads it aloud, before laughing and adding one of his most common refrains. “F— me.”

The booklet is a decision-making guide for whether to replace your implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), a device that sends an electric shock to the heart when it detects a dangerous rhythm to correct it. The guide offers two ways to look at the decision.

The idea of dying quickly sounds painless. I’ve always said I hope to die in my sleep. Going through surgery and being shocked is not something I want.

Or, there’s the alternative:

I’m not ready to die. I have so much to live for. Even if it means being shocked, I’m willing to do anything that can help me live longer.

Barry Switzer has been in the spotlight for so long, and he still talks so fast that it would be easy to forget that he turned 87 on Oct. 5. Not that he shies away from it.

“I’m 87 years old,” he’ll say. “You better get your ass over here.”