The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn’s Spanos finds comfort in coaching after father’s death
Among Lou Spanos’ favorite memories of his father was their final inperson interaction this summer, when Spanos said “I love you,” and George Spanos said, “I love you, too.”
Weeks later, they spoke over FaceTime, with George slipping away due to a breakthrough case of COVID-19 in Charleston, S.C. Lou Spanos watched the funeral via livestream Sept. 7, a day after being named UConn’s interim head football coach.
Similarly, one of Spanos’ favorite memories of his older brother was their last conversation, a casual one in Tulsa in 1993. Spanos said “I love you,” and Gus Spanos said, “I love you, too.” The next night, Gus, a rook
ie police officer, was shot during a routine traffic stop.
Lou Spanos rushed to the hospital and saw his brother laying on a gurney, uniform soaked in blood, a bullet hole in the back of his head, “and that changed my life, that moment,” he said. Gus died the next day. Lou was 22, about a year away from graduation at the University of Tulsa, where he spent two years as his brother’s football teammate.
“What we always talked about as a family — it’s just how we were raised — is that you love each other every moment so there are no regrets,” Spanos said. “You just enjoy the moment.”
Spanos has gone about his job the past week the way he went about starting his career in the 1990s, with a heavy heart, unimaginable grief, but also with enough emotional investment in what’s beautiful about life to fill some voids.
He spoke for 30 minutes Monday, a conversation mostly about love and loss, one of tears and long pauses for composure. He shared memories of his father and brother, how alike they were, how influential, how he feels supported by them now while working through a complicated football opportunity.
Sobbing uncontrollably at times, he talked about the UConn players, too, what they’ve meant to him since his 2019 arrival as defensive coordinator, how they’ve embraced him since he took over for the departed Randy Edsall, and as he mourned.
“The best way to say it is, it’s been loving,” Spanos said of players’ reaction to his father’s death, information he withheld until after Saturday’s game against Purdue, so as not to distract them. “I have so much respect for them. I love them. The other day, I addressed the team and thanked them for what they did. And I broke down. I said, ‘Men, it’s all right to cry. It’s all right to show your feelings. Express yourself.’ There’s nothing wrong with that. There are great life lessons.”
Toss away the most recent box score, peel back the wall that separates coaches and their laserfocused work routines from what most of us consider a more normal existence, and you have people shaped uniquely by a lifetime of experiences.
In Spanos, so real and raw, there is pride in interaction, pain suppressed by relationships and support and love that remains. He is a man of great highs and lows in emotional expression, laughter and outbursts and reflection, because he has steadily marched through great triumphs and losses while building a family
and building the career that has landed him as the center of our little state’s football focus.
Spanos’ football and life approaches were partly shaped by his 15 years as a Steelers assistant in 1995-2009. He started as a scouting intern with a salary of $12,000 and without health insurance, and developed during those formative years under mentors Dick LeBeau and Bill Cowher.
Prior to that, Spanos experienced great joy, and cutting heartbreak, at Tulsa. He arrived in 1989, two years behind his brother, excited in that they would finally play on the same team. Gus, three years ahead back home in suburban Pittsburgh but only two in college because he redshirted, was always a level above Lou while growing up.
At Tulsa, Lou initially backed up his older brother as an offensive lineman, then played alongside him as a sophomore, starting at center and snapping the ball to future NFL quarterback Gus Frerotte. The Spanos brothers loved Tulsa — the university, the city, the people, the football experience. Lou’s teams won two bowl games.
“We were roommates on the road those two years and it was fun, it was awesome,” Lou said. “Hey, we were brothers. One second we’d love each other and next thing we’d fight about who ate the last Snickers or the snack pack. Wake up in the middle of the night, ‘Hey! Who’s got the snack pack? Who ate this?’ We’d really laugh.
“One time we were on the field together, I called the protection out and down on the sideline, we were arguing. The O-line coach said, ‘Quit it.’ My brother snapped at the O-line coach, Mark Thomas, ‘Hey, stay out of it, Coach! We’re brothers. This is family.’ Just awesome memories.”
Lou was a double-major, studying history and education. Gus chose to remain in Tulsa and pursue a career in law enforcement while Lou finished school and looked toward coaching.
In the early morning hours of April 22, 1993, Gus Spanos pulled over a car for rolling a stop sign and called in the license plate numbers. As he exited the cruiser, Lou Spanos explained, the driver in the car shot toward the spotlight. The bullet hit Gus Spanos just behind the right ear.
“He wanted to help serve the people,” Lou Spanos said. “We had a serious talk when he first became a police officer. I said, ‘Gus, you know there’s a chance of being killed in the line of duty.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I understand the risk but this is the profession I chose and I want to serve my community.’ I said, ‘Be careful.’ That was several months before.”
Gus was a newlywed and had been a police officer less than a
year. He was about a month shy of his 25th birthday.
“He knew what he wanted,” Lou Spanos said. “It sucks that he lived short, but he chose the life he wanted and he lived a full life. He died young but he had a life of full experiences.”
The shooter, a career narcotics dealer, according to numerous reports out of Oklahoma in the 1990s, turned himself in weeks later in California. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Spanos said he was able to keep his life on track amid such grief due to the support of his family, including girlfriend Timme. They soon married. The couple has three children — Zachary, 21, Caleb, 18 and Gabby, 16.
The family made Charleston, S.C., where it long had a vacation cottage, its permanent home about 10 years ago because the children were finding it difficult to adjust to one community after another in the years after Spanos’ tenure with the Steelers. He worked for Washington of the NFL, UCLA, the Titans and Alabama before being hired as UConn’s defensive coordinator in 2019.
Spanos splits his time, visiting Charleston in the offseason with family members visiting Connecticut during the season. His parents — father George and mother Fifi — have lived with his wife and three children in Charleston for a couple of years. Lou was home in Charleston for a stretch in July, in advance of UConn’s preseason camp.
“My parents were with us and I told my wife this weekend is
special,” Spanos said. “I said, ‘Babe, it’s too good right now. Something is going to be different.’ My dad and my uncle drove me to the airport and I felt like I was a kid again. I was going to take an Uber and my dad said, ‘No, I’ll drive you.’ Perfect.
“So him and my uncle were in the front seat and I’m in the back seat. I’m 50 years old and I feel like I’m going to college as a freshman. He parked the car and we got out. I gave him a hug and said, ‘I love you.’ He said, ‘I love you, too.’”
All six people living in Charleston were fully vaccinated.
Yet five of the six recently tested positive for COVID-19.
The symptoms ranged from non-existent to the very worst. George Spanos wound up in the emergency room, and on a ventilator. Eventually, the last week of August, Lou was told it was time to call to say goodbye.
George Spanos, 77, died Sept. 2, a few weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and just four days before his son would become a head coach for the first time. Lou Spanos chose not to return to Charlestown, S.C., for the funeral Sept. 7, for fear of contracting the virus and putting the UConn community at risk.
Lou Spanos said his brother and father were very similar — driven but gregarious men, workers. One of Lou’s favorite stories about his dad is the time George was waiting for luggage at the Pittsburgh airport, arriving to visit his son, when he noticed another traveler with clothes or gear with the University of Pittsburgh label.
He approached the young man
— Tulsa native Rod Humphrey, a Pitt player, as it turned out.
“It was like 1 in the morning, late,” Lou said. “Rod said, ‘I’m going to take a cab.’ My dad said, ‘No, you’re not. I’m going to drive you.’ So my dad drove him from the airport to the University of Pittsburgh. Rod, he was part of the family. My dad still talked to him until the day he passed away. This is like 20 years later. It’s amazing. And me and Rod still talk. Him and my dad stuck together, that friendship. My dad was just so personable. That cliched, could make friends in a second. That was my father.”
Lou still keeps in touch with his brother's widow, Christie. The loss of his father is still fresh, being processed. He feels that both men, in some way, are with him through his everyday life at UConn.
Spanos paused. He cried. Then he cracked a joke: “Why are you asking me these questions?” He laughed. Then he cried some more.
“He was a painter, owned a painting business,” Lou said of his father. “He’d always find time for us, both boys. He never missed a practice from little league all the way through high school. He was our No. 1 fan. He was an excellent role model.
“I was very fortunate to have two good role models in my life, my father and my brother. My brother pushed me in training and made me. I got my work habits from my father and my brother.”