'Crash' landing in Lincoln
Published: 2/15/2008 8:42 AM
Last Modified: 2/15/2008 8:42 AM
To me, Mike "Crash" Ekeler is best known for giving one of the all-time great quotes in OU sports history. It happened the day Bob Stoops was introduced as football coach. Ekeler, whose relationship with Stoops dates back to playing for Stoops' Kansas State defense and special teams in the early 90s, walked up to athletic director Joe Castiglione and said, "You have no idea what you've just done."
Two years later, Castiglione got the gist of what Ekeler was talking about when the Sooners won an unfathomable national championship.
Five years later, Ekeler was reunited with his old coach when Stoops brought him aboard as a graduate assistant. It was then that Ekeler hitched his wagon to another co-defensive coordinator. Bo Pelini.
Here's the story, courtesy of Rich Kaipust of the Omaha World-Herald:
"Ekeler was about to leave Oklahoma after the 2003 season, his first as a Sooners graduate assistant. His destination was likely going to be Texas high school football. That was all but decided when he drove to the airport to pick up Pelini, who had just been passed over for the Nebraska head coaching job and then hired by OU coach Bob Stoops to be his co-defensive coordinator.
"Pelini told Ekeler to stick it out through spring practice and re-evaluate. In those next few months, Ekeler immediately realized that Pelini stood for everything that pulled him toward coaching, from how to treat players to how to coach them to how to make an impact on their lives."
Ekeler worked with Pelini that '04 season, and eventually followed him to LSU when Pelini began coordinating Les Miles' defenses.
Now, he has followed him to Nebraska, and is a full-time Division I assistant for the first time on Pelini's first staff as a D-I head coach.
Ekeler shows the same manic enthusiasm he did as a special teams demon at K-State, where he earned his nickname crashing into advertising boards after running onto the field before kickoff, and at OU, where he became the first to pronounce Stoops' greatness.
He recently kept touted linebacker Will Compton from skipping out on his verbal commitment by tattooing Compton's name on his arm (a great story, even if the tat turned out to be temporary).
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
