Sign of all times
Published: 7/26/2007 9:35 AM
Last Modified: 7/26/2007 9:35 AM
The only coach I saw issuing autographs at Big 12 media days in San Antonio was Texas' Mack Brown. No signing this summer, however, meant more than Bob Stoops' in Coralville, Iowa.
That's where the OU coach found himself one evening earlier this month, at a banquet honoring Hayden Fry, his old Iowa coach. That's also where 77-year-old Hawkeye fan Jim Hayes found himself, and he was carrying a football autographed by members of Iowa's famed 1986 staff -- Fry, Bill Snyder, Kirk Ferentz and Dan McCarney among others.
The only signature missing was Stoops'.
"He said he didn't know what he was doing that day (the football was autographed), but he was probably fetching something," Hayes told the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
This time, Hayes got his man. Or got his man's signature.
Stoops couldn't sign the actual ball -- it had been preserved in plexiglass -- but he did autograph the case. That brought a comforting sense of closure to Mr. Hayes.
And, in case he ever wants to put any of his grandchildren through college, it provided the potential for a nice little nest egg as well.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
