Stoops: No stomach for this
Published: 9/3/2006 7:53 PM
Last Modified: 9/3/2006 7:53 PM
I thought I knew Bob Stoops.
I've followed his career since he was defensive coordinator at Kansas State, and intently so since he was defensive coordinator at Florida. (As the World's Arkansas beat writer in 1997 and '98, I yelled from the highest treetops that Stoops should have been hired to replace John Blake as the Sooners' coach after the '97 season. I saw, first-hand, what Stoops' defense did to the Razorbacks that steamy day in Gainesville, Fla., a 56-7 rout in The Swamp.)
I've studied Stoops' words and manners regularly since he finally did become a citizen of the Sooner Nation in December 1998.
I've either read, listened to or typed every word the man spoke in public since becoming the World's primary OU football beat writer in the spring of 2004.
Heck, I played golf with Stoops on July 31. They say if you want to get to know somebody, spend four hours with them swinging golf clubs. (Honestly, that day revealed little I didn't already know. The impression left on me was that the guy can flat coach. The reason I know this is he told me exactly where to putt a 25-footer, and it bent right into the cup. Later, when I couldn't see the pin from the tee box, he told me to aim my drive at an under-construction house in the distance and I hit it dead solid perfect. I recall these because, in the scramble format, these were pretty much the only two shots of mine that our team used all day. I'm a golfer whose handicap is stepping on the course, and the two times Stoops coached me up that day, he got results. Imagine what he can do with an All-American football player. But back to my story.)
I thought I knew Bob Stoops. But he painted a picture on Sunday that showed me just how far off I was.
It was after 1 in the morning, and I was alone, driving up I-44 after Oklahoma's victory over UAB on Saturday night.
The only college game on my satellite radio was BYU's game at Arizona. As Wildcats kicker Nick Folk rammed a 48-yard field goal on the last play of the game to win it for 'Zona, I formed a mental image of Stoops, sitting in his presumably plush living room, maybe doing a little dance in front of his 1,000-inch plasma screen high-def TV, perhaps high-fiving Matt McMillen or Brent Venables or Jerry Schmidt, and celebrating the fact that his brother, Mike, just won his season opener.
But Bob, almost always on guard against giving outsiders even a hint of his personal life, offered a tiny vignette, and it wasn't anywhere near what I expected. He said he watched "some" of the game, but not all.
"It's too hard to watch my brothers," he said. "I'm already beat up, wore out. You fight through your game, and it's hard for me to have any more to watch them. For some reason (when) you're watching family, you feel everything they're feeling. I can't do it twice in a day."
Stoops had just enough left, apparently, to stay interested, but not quite enough to invest any more emotion.
"I did see the last kick," he said. "My wife told me it was good before I turned around."
– John E. Hoover
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
