Stoops brother share memories for a cause

Youngstown’s coaching Stoops quartet helps raise $220,000

By GARY HOUSTEAU

sports @vindy.com

POLAND

The United Way’s annual fund-raiser, Champions Among Us, was a hometown hit in so many ways Monday night.

All four of the Stoops brothers came home to highlight a big night of fund-raising, with both silent and live auctions, and fellowship with the guys from Detroit Avenue on the South Side of Youngstown.

More than 500 people were in attendance at Ed and Chris Muransky’s Lake Club where the United Way, according to President Bob Hannon, raised more than $220,000. Two $10,000 gift packages to the Ohio State-Oklahoma game were the main auction prizes, courtesy of Bob Stoops, of course.

Ed Muransky co-hosted the live auction with Hannon. Muransky, Ray Mancini, Don Bucci and Mark Braydich each gave some unique insight about the Stoops brothers as the program began. The Stoops brothers lived just “a four-iron away” as Muransky described it from himself and Mancini, while the Braydich family was just two houses away. Of course, Bucci was the legendary Mooney coach who partnered with Ron Stoops the father for those early championship seasons.

“All of us think of him all of the time and believe he’s got the best seat in the house and he’s looking down and seeing it all and experiencing it all,” said Bob Stoops, when he was asked by the media prior to the event how proud his father would be to see how successful his four sons have become. “We’re blessed as a family for all that’s happened, not just on the football field, but how we are with our families.”

With the matriarch of the family, Dee Stoops, in attendance — the Stoops family celebrated her 80th birthday on Sunday — each of the brothers took the stage with Hannon. The host was flanked by Mark and then Mike to his right and Ron and Bob to his left, and the brothers shared some intimate and sometime funny stories about their lives and careers and growing in Youngstown.

Ron, the oldest brother, didn’t partake in the big-time college approach that his other brothers did but he always wanted to follow the coaching and teaching path that their father blazed so successfully for them. Ron was an assistant coach at Boardman and then Mooney before landing at his current position at Youngstown State.

“I was well into my career path when Bobby became the head coach at Oklahoma,” said Ron, who went to YSU as a student.

Of course Bob went to Iowa and started the trend of having a Stoops brother playing in the Hawkeye secondary for about a decade.

“Iowa offered me a scholarship so I’m going to Iowa,” said Bob, after he joked about Bowling Green offering him but then they rescinded it. “It’s a Big Ten school and I was lucky, Bob Cummings was the head coach and I got a big break. I get it. I had a huge break. So I went to Iowa.”

Iowa then recruited Mike two years later and then they recruited Mark when Mike was ready to leave.

“Funny story,” said Bob Stoops. “My mom is sitting at a Michigan game and she’s sitting in front or behind a Michigan couple with my dad, and the lady said, ‘Is that 41 ever going to leave?’ He’s been there forever. So one of us had been on the field for 10 years. And [mom] said, ‘No, there’s been three of them.’ ”

It was a night a fun and laughter with each of the brothers sharing personal stories.

“I grew up in Youngstown, the youngest of six kids, I had no bed. I grew up with no bed,” said Mark as the crowd roared along with his story. “So there’s four of us and we lived in a three-bedroom house and we had three beds upstairs. I was the odd man out. That’s a true story.”

“We had shag carpet upstairs,” Bob said.

Of course the subject of coaching came up like when Mark was asked if it was tough being a head coach at a basketball school like Kentucky.

“It’s not difficult,” he said. “When I took this job I knew exactly what I was getting into. It was very difficult, in one of the toughest conferences in the country, and I loved that. I loved that challenge. That’s Youngstown. That’s how I grew up and it’s a blessing. It really is. The people — Coach Bucci, my dad, my mom, my family, my brothers — it’s just a blessing. To have that fight and the desire, you’re really not worried about it. I feel very good about where we’re at and we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big.”

It was a night about Youngstown and more importantly a night about the Stoops family — all for the benefit of the United Way.

“Obviously my dad was a huge influence on all of us,” said Ron, reflecting on what his father meant to all of the brothers. “In all of our coaching philosophies and in no stone unturned and in all the hours of watching film — we all watched him do that. That was really the kind of person he was.

“And the other thing that I remember is that he looked for the good in all of the people and I just know that when people were around him they felt good about themselves and I think we all try to do that. These are very humble guys and they’re good to the people they work with and work for, and the kids they coach and I know that’s a reflection of him.”

And as the evening came to end Bob shared the one of the more poignant stories of the evening.

“To this day,” he said. “I’ll walk out of our locker room and I’ll pick up a towel, almost every day, as I watched my dad mop the locker room every time we left the locker room as kids. It chokes me up every time.”