Published August 30, 2008 12:53 am - Ten years on the job for Bob Stoops. Almost a hundred wins against about 20 losses. Three trips to the national championship game and five Big 12 titles. A Heisman Trophy winner and two runners-up. It’s been an occasionally wild ride. It calls for a top 10 list. Not of bests, or worsts, or players, or opponents, but just stuff, in no particular order.
Stoops at 10 years deserves a top 10 list
Commentary
By Clay Horning
The Norman Transcript
Ten years.
Ten years on the job for Bob Stoops.
Almost a hundred wins against about 20 losses. Three trips to the national championship game and five Big 12 titles. A Heisman Trophy winner and two runners-up.
It’s been an occasionally wild ride.
It calls for a top 10 list.
Not of bests, or worsts, or players, or opponents, but just stuff, in no particular order.
10. The cult of Bob
Stoops has become part of the landscape, the nomenclature and vernacular.
The visor, for instance. It is Stoopsian, his calling card and a fashion statement, all at once. He wears shorts to press conferences and khakis on the sideline, but catching Stoops without a visor is like spotting President Lincoln without a beard.
And his motto: “No excuses.”
First spoken on the steps of Evans Hall. He was explaining a philosophy offered a slogan instead. It’s still going. Like Steve Martin’s “Excuse me” and Henny Youngman’s “Take my wife, please,” Stoops will be associated with the phrase forever.
The last part of the cult of Bob is the Stoops accent. Maybe everybody skips their pronouns in Youngstown, Ohio, and describes things as having occurred “in a good way,” as in, “Thought, played well today, in a good way.”
Really, who needs “I” or “We.”