Oklahoma football: Eight great books on Sooner gridiron history
By Chip Rouse
“No Excuses: The Making of a Head Coach,” by Bob Stoops, with Gene Wojciechowski. Little Brown and Company, 2019. 246 pages
In the 1990s, Oklahoma football struggled by typically high Sooner standards. In the three seasons, preceding Bob Stoops’ arrival as head coach, the Sooners suffered through three consecutive losing seasons. That all turned around after the hiring of Stoops, who went on to win 190 football games, the most by any Oklahoma head coach, in 18 seasons before handing the reins to Lincoln Riley.
This is the story about Stoops’ career and his rise from his youth in Youngstown, Ohio, to his playing days as a defensive back at the University of Iowa and his emergence in the college coaching profession. He talks about his apprenticeships and the mentoring he received from some of the great names in college coaching, including Hayden Fry, his coach at Iowa, Bill Snyder at Kansas State and Steve Spurrier at Florida.
This is a moving memoir of Stoops’ life and his time at Oklahoma, where he is credited with returning Oklahoma football to national relevancy. Along the way, he won a national championship and led the Sooners to 10 conference championships and a dozen seasons of at least 11 wins.