Before last years football game between #10 ranked Oklahoma and #17 ranked Florida State in Norman, members of the Stoops football family had only met once before on the football field.
It is a memory that none of the Stoops family will ever forget.
In October of 1988, the Stoopses family patriarch and elder statesman Ron Sr. led his Youngstown, Ohio Cardinal Mooney team against oldest son Ron, Jr.'s Boardman team. Ron Jr. was the assistant coach in charge of defense for Boardman. Ron Sr. was the long-time defensive coordinator for Cardinal Mooney in his 28th year coaching at the same school where he had coincidentally coached all four of his sons.
During a heated, closely contested game late in the fourth quarter, with most of the entire Stoops clan in the stands watching, Ron Sr. collapsed on the Cardinal Mooney sideline. A hushed stadium, including son Ron Jr. watching down on his father from the press box, looked on anxiously as they watched Ron Stoops being treated. Ron Jr. was soon by his father's side as the game went into triple overtime with Mooney winning. Ron Sr. was attended to on the sideline and saw the outcome and then was placed in an ambulance.
A few seconds later Ron Stoops, Sr. died of a massive heart attack. He was 54 years old. "It's almost poetic," said his daughter Kathy, "You couldn't write a story and have it come out that way." (The New York Times, August 29, 2004.)
Suddenly the importance of something as simple as a high school football game wasn't very important anymore.
Fast-Forward to 2010
So you can imagine the intensity of the feelings building up inside 49-year old Bob Stoops and youngest brother Mark as they prepared to face-off against one another last September in Norman.
Older brother Bob had been dreading this game ever since that December night in 2009 that baby brother Mark had excitedly called him about his newest coaching opportunity. You see Florida State had an opening with legendary coach Bobby Bowden's forced retirement. Incoming coach Jimbo Fisher had reached out to the younger Stoops for the defensive coordinator job at Florida State. The younger Stoops was defensive coordinator on his older brother Mike's staff at Arizona. The opportunity to accept the Florida State job for first year coach Fisher and escape older brother Mike's shadow, prompted the call for advice to the man all Sooner fans knew as "Big-Game Bob" who was now simply big brother Bob.
The second oldest sibling Bob was well aware of the tragedy that had played out on the football field in Youngstown in 1988 between Ron Sr. and Ron Jr. but kept his thoughts to himself. You see Bob Stoops knew that Florida State was already scheduled to play Oklahoma in Norman that coming September. The very thought of facing off against baby brother was as heart-wrenching a thought as he could possibly think of. He knew the stress and strain of having to put his mother and family through another Stoops match-up on the field would create. He also knew that heart disease ran in his family genes, had been the main contributor to his father's fatal heart attack and had prompted him to get annual exams, control his high cholesterol with medications, maintain a healthy diet and strict work out schedule ever since his father's untimely death. Bob Stoops wanted nothing to do with contributing to another Stoops family coaching match-up and the first between the four football-coaching, sibling brothers all of whom had played defense for their father at Cardinal Mooney.
In fact, the very same situation had just been averted during the 2009 bowl season. It seems the Sun Bowl folks were absolutely giddy with the prospects of an Oklahoma vs. Arizona match-up in El Paso. Bob Stoops Oklahoma team was the likely representative from the Big 12. The top contender from the Pac-10 was Mike Stoops Arizona Wildcats.
Both Stoops brothers made their feelings known to school officials who conveyed their wishes to the Sun Bowl folks: there would be no Stoops vs. Stoops bowl game this holiday season. Fortunately for the Stoops family, Stanford qualified for the Sun Bowl against Oklahoma. Another Stoops match-up was averted.
So after getting his older brother's advice to follow his dreams, Mark Stoops accepted the Florida State job and the first person he called to tell the news was big brother Bob who replied, "That's great. Congratulations." And the first person who called him after that phone call was the head coach of one of his new teams' opponents the next season: Bob Stoops. "You realize I'm not going to talk to you for a year because we're going to play you the second game of the year?", Bob joked, realizing his youngest brother had weighed many factors before opting to leave Arizona, where he had worked for another sibling, Mike, but he hadn't looked at Florida State's schedule. (St. Petersburg Times, September 8, 2010.)
Fast forward nine months later and to complicate matters, it was Bob's 50th birthday and the entire Stoops clan from Youngstown was in the stands in Norman to watch the game, including both sisters and his 73-year old mother Dee. They celebrated Bob's birthday two days earlier. All the Stoops family was there except brothers Ron Sr. and Mike who were coaching their respective teams.
Bob Stoops' Oklahoma Sooners put on a football clinic against Florida State last September winning convincingly 47-17. The win propelled the Sooners toward a 6-0 record and #1 ranking the first week of the BCS poll. As much as the win meant to Oklahoma and the Sooner Nation, Bob Stoops felt absolutely awful. To see his team manhandle and dissect younger brother Mark's Florida State defense so convincingly was not something he was proud of. Happy for the victory. Not happy with the situation. "It's a rotten place to be because I appreciate the way our team played and all that, but you just cannot separate blood," Bob Stoops said. "I just don't like it. I knew that coming into the game I didn't, and I'm positive of it now after the game." (Daily Oklahoman, September 11, 2010.)
2011 Match-Up Has Special Meaning
So as August two-a-day practices continue, injuries mount up and pre-season polls are announced, the brothers Stoops awkwardly anticipate another matchup between their two teams on September 17 in Tallahassee.
Except this time the football stakes are much higher. Older brother Bob's Sooners are ranked #1 in the USA TODAY pre-season poll. Baby brother Mark's Seminoles are ranked #5. To most outside observers, the stakes couldn't possibly be higher.
For the football-coaching Stoops family of Youngstown, Ohio, the stakes already have been as high as they could be.
Neither sibling is looking forward to September 17 because they know that one of them will walk off the field with a defeat for his team and the other one will have a victory. Neither one will like it.
They both will be trying to make their football coach-dad proud having turned the football instincts he instilled in them as young boys growing up in Youngstown into leaders of two of the most prestigious football programs in the country.
Regardless of the outcome on the field they both will be winner's in the Stoops family having carried on their father's legacy.
As the Stoops sister said, "It's almost poetic. You couldn't write a story and have it come out that way."
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