Stoops: Never say ever or never
Bob Stoops says never say ever or never, and it doesn't bother him a bit that he just said never.
He woke up Wednesday morning, in Florida, of all places, on a promotion trip for Rock N Roll Tequila and an appearance at the Dan Marino Foundation Charity Ball, to discover that a Tallahassee television station had reported that a deal was eminent for Stoops to become the head coach of Florida State.
It was silly, of course, for a lot of reasons we'll get into in a moment, but Stoops says he didn't care. Never has. Stoops says he long ago banished rumors and reports, denying them the ability to impact his life.
“In the end, there's so much, anymore it just deflects off me; just slides off,” Stoops said Thursday night at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill in Bricktown, where a few hundred OU fans assembled for a booksigning of Stoops' new autobiography and a pep rally for his new team.
Maybe some day Stoops, 59, will coach a team with a higher profile than the XFL's Dallas Renegades. Maybe he'll
miss all the academic meetings and recruiting meetings and compliance meetings. The homesick freshmen who miss their girlfriends or their moms. The 2 a.m. phone calls that is every coach's nightmare.
But some day is not now, and trying to shoehorn Stoops into saying he might or he never will is fruitless. Stoops is too mentally tough.
“Life changes for everybody every year,” Stoops said. “Everyone wants you to define the end of your life at whatever age you're at. You can't do it.”
For now, Stoops seems energized by coaching a fledgling franchise in a fledgling league, all while still living in Norman and keeping up with the Sooners, watching son Drake catch passes and punts but feeling a kinship with many of the players and coaches. Stoops still makes most OU games and will stop by practice or a coaches meeting, not to help out, but to be helped, just to listen because it furthers his understanding of what he'll see on Saturdays.
The way Stoops promoted the XFL to the chicken-fried crowd at Toby Keith's — he even touted the Oklahoma City chapter of the Renegades Fan Club as already having 700 members — it seems like he's having fun.
“I have fun with everything, to be quite honest with you,” Stoops said. “I may not look like it sometimes, but there are very few things in my last 20 years that I haven't had fun with.”
But Stoops admits that after going on three years without the challenge of a gameplan or a game, maybe he is looking forward to the competitive stage again.
And that kind of honesty probably feeds the notion that he wants back in the college game. Maybe some day he will.
But Florida State seems an outrageous stretch. To the crowd and later, sitting around a table with a couple of veteran writers, Stoops mentioned the leadership of XFL commissioner Oliver Luck and OU athletic director Joe Castiglione. Stoops, remember, always talked about Joe C. and OU president David Boren as being vital to his success and his desire to stay in Norman, where he coached for 18 seasons.
“Means everything,” Stoops said. “People you work with help you or hurt you. It means a ton. Means a great deal that people around you are going to support you and be on the same page as you, same values, how you go about your process. In this game, there's so many hands in the pot, I don't think you do it just by yourself.”
Great leadership doesn't describe Florida State, where athletic director David Coburn seems on shaky ground, having hired and fired Willie Taggart in the span of 23 months, while being elevated from interim AD to full-time AD. You want to guess if and when and where Stoops will get back in the college game? A place void of strong leadership is a dry hole.
Stoops does admit that he loved coaching college football.
“There's no getting around it,” Stoops said. “I loved what I did. Loved every part of it. And a big part of it was working with players that age. I think you can affect `em more than maybe you can a 24- or 25-year-old. In fact, I know you can.”
But Stoops also knows those college freshmen and sophomores can affect you, too, and not always for the better. So he walked away from a job he loved, and now he's coaching half a year, in a league that didn't exist when he left OU, because life changes for everybody every year.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-7608080 or at btramel@ oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok. com/berrytramel.