A rundown of Bob Stoops' book released today
SoonerScoop.com was sent a pre-release of Bob Stoops and Gene Wojciechowski's book, 'No Excuses: The Making of a Head Coach' for review.
The book has been released today and you can order a copy from Amazon.com by clicking this link.
Stoops tells us he will also be having some book signings coming up soon. We will alert you of those dates as we receive them.
I spent almost 18 years getting to know Bob Stoops through a filter. Bob Stoops the person was different than Bob Stoops the coach. You always knew there was more to Bob than you were seeing in press settings or on the football field. Stoops talks openly about that at the start of his new book, “No Excuses”.
He himself terms it Bob Stoops the person versus Bob Stoops the public figure.
Every once in a while over those 18 years of covering OU football you got a fleeting glimpse of Bob Stoops the person. Those moments often came when I’d get a phone call from him as I was on my way home after leaving practice. He was usually fired up about something he said or something he wanted to clarify even further.
Sometimes it came after big victories when he’d let his guard down a bit. Or during a postgame or pregame interaction with his family on the sideline.
After reading an advanced copy of his book which is being released today, it was as if Stoops filled in the gaps to what I thought I knew.
The personality we spent so long trying to pry out of Stoops flows out onto the pages.
Early in the book, Stoops recounts his relationship and memories of his father and his family growing up in Youngstown. I’ve always said one of Stoops’ most admirable qualities is that he is genuine.
That comes across even more in his appreciation of family. If you want to know how Stoops was shaped by his family, his environment and his father, this is a must read.
Stoops chronicles what it was like as a 5-foot-11, 165-pound defensive back trying to earn a college scholarship. And that leads into detailed experiences of his playing days at Iowa.
As well as being introduced to Hayden Frye and eventually becoming a part of one of the biggest and most successful coaching trees in college football history.
There are moments in the book that are as personal as Stoops has ever been: The death of his father while coaching on the sideline. Meeting his wife Carol for the first time. A medical scare with his oldest daughter when she was just five years old.
Even though the story has been out there of how Iowa bungled their hiring process and lost out to Oklahoma in the race to hire Stoops, the book gives a play-by-play of how interviews took place between Oklahoma and Iowa.
Oh yeah, there was an interesting twist in all of that too. Current Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby was Iowa’s Athletic Director at the time.
Throughout the book there are quotes from others about Bob Stoops. During the hiring process at Oklahoma, Joe Castiglione and David Boren lend context to what was happening during Stoops’ hiring.
Stoops candidly speaks about his introduction on the steps of Evans Hall back on December 1, 1998.
One of my favorite parts of the book is that Stoops gets a little colorful with his language. Something those of us who have spent time around Stoops knows happens, but it’s always kind of cool to hear regular guy cussing out of Stoops.
It’s just as cool to read too.
Says Stoops in his book of standing in front of the microphone to address the crowd that day at Evans Hall, “Oh, shit, here we go.”
One of the most interesting things for me about this book is that Stoops separates fact from fiction on what job offers over the years were real and which were nothing more than rumors. Stoops even recounts the times he was pursued by NFL teams.
There was even one team Stoops openly pursued when he was at Oklahoma, but the job never materialized.
But outside of football, two things really stood out to me about Stoops and things I didn’t know.
During two-a-days before the 2001 season, his five-year old daughter Mackie had a serious medical condition arise. She had surgery just before the Sooners kicked off against North Carolina that year.
Stoops spent time away from the team and even as a young reporter back then, I knew it was a very personal and serious matter. Prying for info wasn’t something I was comfortable doing.
Can you imagine the panic in this day and age? Everyone has to know every minor detail about the team? Stoops leaving the team right before kickoff in this hot take world we live in?
The other thing that stood out to me is Stoops finally getting to tell the story in his own words about all those visits he made, and still makes, to the Children’s hospital. He details some heartbreaking stories about the relationships developed between himself, his players and children fighting for their lives.
You won’t make it through that chapter without some waterworks.
There are so many more moments that Stoops uncovers for us throughout the book. The crushing loss to USC in the 2004 national championship game and the blame he feels for that loss.
You’ll also be surprised to find out how Stoops feels about the Boise State Fiesta Bowl years later.
And of course, Stoops goes into great detail about his decision to retire as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma, giving a complete timeline of the days events.
I mentioned two things that really stood out to me in this book: Stoops’ time going through a serious medical situation with his daughter and his time spent with children fighting life-threatening illnesses.
But after reading this book, the first thing I texted Bob was how impressed I was with his admiration for his wife Carol. And my admiration for her as a person.
The one theme that weaves in and out of this book as Stoops made his way from Iowa to Kansas State to Florida to his 18 years of Oklahoma and countless job offers along the way was how Carol Stoops supported him and guided him with her own way of doing things.
It immediately brings to mind the old quote, “Behind every great man, there is a woman.”
“She's a major part of all of it. I mean the backbone of me, the backbone of everything we did,” Bob Stoops told me during a phone conversation last night. “I mean anything I've ever processed would go through her. She always had great advice. She's a great leader on her own. I mean she was a national director for all those years at Mary Kay and she knew leadership and what was what.
“So there's no question. I mean there was nobody I trusted more than her.”
Bob Stoops spent 18 years as Oklahoma’s head coach. He made that decision time and time again for reasons he defends throughout the book.
But every time Stoops faced a fork in the road, he leaned on his wife, who helped him see what he already knew.
OU fans had Bob Stoops for 18 years. But they also had Carol Stoops, who was in the background contributing to OU’s success in ways we never knew.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
And I can’t thank the now former head coach enough for finally letting us in on Bob Stoops the person.