TERRY HOEPPNER: 1947--2007

Well that’s just about the worst fucking way to start the day.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the Hoeppner clan and everyone he’s affected.

Sad. Will go down as legendary tough man in my book for coaching days after brain surgery. Upon reaching heaven probably immediately called Bear Bryant a wuss.

http://www.miamihawktalk.com/home/news/story/5521/

Ugh. I’m not even a Hoosier fan or grad, and I still feel awful. Agree with Brewster, terrible effing way to start the day.

Truly a class act. He will be missed.

A punch in the gut is not a good way to start the day.
Tougher men are hard to find. Go get ’em Terry!

Bear Bryant got into heaven?

Brian—no, but hell is still a step up from Tuscaloosa.

Also, I agree—a tougher man is hard to find. Prayers sent out to his family, friends, players, and the university.

Oh no.

He kept going right up until the very end, didn’t he? What a fighter.

He’s in a better place now (in my belief system). My thoughts will be with his wife and kids. Their loss is also all of college football’s loss.

I’m in Bloomington for the week. Horrible news.

Ok, enough of the sad crap. I say we go at this thing Irish wake style. The man tried beating cancer to come back and coach. That’s gotta be a man with some huge stones. And the fact that he almost got Indiana Football into postseason play may the most impressive thing a Big Ten coach has done in quite a while.

And as for Bear Bryant being in heaven, of course he’s there. Pope Celestine IV declared all that coach football will end up there. It was the highlight of his 17 day reign. We’re just waiting for Benedict XVI to change the rules to keep Gary Barnett and Barry Switzer and other horrible cheaters out.

Yikes. And almost exactly one year after Randy Walker, too.

Prayers for his family and the IU community to bounce back from this.

-100 Very sad.

I propose EDSBS initiate a Terry Hoeppner One Tough SumBitch Award.

Goes without saying, but terribly sad news. I was watching the IU-Iowa game last year and saw the pure emotion from him as he celebrated a big win not just with his team, but with his family as well. Really a touching scene. Thoughts and prayers.

That’s 2 terrible losses for the Big11 and the Miami program in 2 years…

last year was Coach Walker, this year was Coach Hoeppner….

absolutely tragic.

Coach Hoeppner, you will be an inspiration to all those who follow CBF. May peace be with you, your immediate family, and all of the IU family.

Catch you on the flip side, brother.

Terry Hoeppner could kick Chuck Norris’ ass.

R.I.P., coach. Go Hoosiers.

Thoughts & prayers. A great coach & a great man.

wow – I was just talking about how sad the whole Hoeppner situation made me last night on Deadspin.

God bless ya Coach.

Drogue – I like that idea.
Tough guy and a good coach.

Thoughts and prayers to Hoosier Nation.

Just wow… A sad thread about the even sadder death of a great guy and the usual suspects show no respect to the Hoeppners or anyone else by using a condolence thread to bash Coach Bryant and Alabama. I guess generations of inbred jealousy and hatred override common decency and respect.

Pathetic, but not at all surprising.

You guys are everything I’ve come to expect from your respective fanbases. You should be proud of yourselves.

Rest in Peace, Coach Hoeppner, and prayers out to your family, friends and all in the Hoosier nation.

I had a chance to meet him in 2003 at a GMAC bowl function. I remember him being a very nice guy. He was a hell of a lot more approachable than that dickhead Petrino was.

God bless you and your family. You were as tough a man as I can remember.

I have no use for the state of Indiana for the other 51 weeks of the year, but I feel for Hoeppner’s family and the entire IU community.

That’s two good coaches in two years, while scum such as [PICK ONE] are allowed to live. Maybe next year, the GR will take a coach who deserves a slow and painful death. But Walker and Hoeppner were class acts, and college athletics are the poorer for their absence.

Very sad news, but as everyone above me has noted, what he had been doing in the face of everything was incredible. He’ll be missed.

Indiana upset Iowa last fall. I didn’t have a strong rooting interest in either team. Still, it was a moment of joy, watching Hoeppner’s gray-haired wife, in a skirt and white cardigan, run through the end zone as the clock ran out, then peck kisses on Terry’s face when his interview ended. I loved every second of that — one of the sweetest and most emotional moments I’ve seen in a game. I rewound it on Tivo five or six times. For both of them, it looked like pure happiness.

Hoeppner was basically a how-to guide to the way a man should live his life.

I will raise my glass in his honor tonight.

R.I.P.

I met Coach Hep in undergrad when he did a mid-day radio show live from a dining hall. He made me more enthusiastic, and I was sitting there in the dining hall with my hair already sprayed red for that night’s game against Bowling Green. The man’s energy and spirit were boundless and infectious.

And his death is kind of the opposite of that. A sucker punch. But hopefully his family and close friends can take comfort in the number of lives he touched over the years—a number that sure as hell isn’t confined to the guys who played for him.

This is unbelievably sad. It’s safe to say we all were hoping against all odds that he’d be on the sidelines in Bloomington for the next decade or so, giving the Big Ten hell.

RIP, Hep.

Coaching football right after surgery for a brain tumor is one of the most bad assed things ever. To echo posts above, horrible way to start the day. Rest well, Coach.

If you measure a man by what it takes to keep him down, Hoeppner raised the bar.

A lot.

He’ll not be forgotten. Good idea on the award.

One of the local stations in Indy has put together a short retrospective video.

http://www.theindychannel.com/video/13527631/index.html?source

Not the best way to start the day… I’ll be sure to end it with a glass raised for Coach Hoeppner in the Irish tradition (the heritage, not the team).
Rest in peace Coach. What a kickass guy.

Horrible news.

Echoing everyone… thoughts and prayers to Coach Hep’s family and loved ones.

Another pain for the Cradle of Coaches. Good coach, better man. RIP.

This is not what I wanted to hear first thing when I got to work. Hoeppner was proof that it’s possible to be a great coach without mortgaging your soul and the world is a slightly worse place without him. RIP Coach Hep.

Condolences to the Miami and Indiana U. communities this morning. What awful news.

I think a good insight into Coach Hep’s character could be seen during the mega-successful 2003 season, when Ben Roethlisberger led the Redhawks to a MAC title, bowl victory and AP Top 10 finish.

On three separate occasions that season, Miami was in position to simply name their score against an opponent, once against a Big Ten team, twice against conference rivals.

In September against Northwestern, Miami jumped out to a 44-14 lead in the third quarter, and easily could have hung 70 on the Wildcats. MAC teams rarely have the opportunity to drop an eye-popping score on a Big Ten team, and plenty of red-clad fans in the stands in Evanston were hoping for that result, if for no other reason than as payback for all the times MAC teams were on the receiving end of a Big Ten whipping. But Hep’s good friend Randy Walker was on the other sideline, and that was that. Miami called off the dogs, and 44-14 ended up as the final score.

In October of that year, my Ball State Cardinals were completely overwhelmed by Miami, and we trailed 35-0 at the half. Hep could be forgiven if he wanted to stick it to a school that fired his good friend Bill Lynch the previous year, a rival that had embarrassed his squad in national news three years earlier by snapping a 21-game losing streak against Miami. But again, Hep rested his starters in the second half, and the game ended in a 38-3 count, allowing BSU fans to save a smidgen of face on our Homecoming day.

Finally, in November, Miami faced Marshall with the MAC East title on the line. It was the MAC’s most bitter rivalry at the time, and the game the previous year was a fiasco, with Miami losing in agonizing fashion after the coaches received death threats, the team was threatened with food poisoning at their hotel, the Miami fans and cheerleaders were assaulted and treated horribly in Huntington. (This was the game that featured a Miami asst. being led from the field in handcuffs by yokel local officers).

 In ‘03 in Oxford, however, Miami dominated, and led 45-6 late in the game when a turnover gave Miami the ball inside the Marshall five-yard line. Now, given what transpired the year before, there’s no one on God’s green earth who would have blamed Hep for sticking in an emphasis TD against their fiercest rival. Hell, I was watching the game on TV hoping he would punch one more in. But Hep told his kids to take a knee, figuring that would set forth a far better lesson than extracting an extra pound of flesh from a vanquished, albeit hated, foe.

It was that sort of grace and class in victory that I’ll remember about Terry Hoeppner.

RIP Coach.

Be the ROCK.

RIP Coach Hep, and condolences to his family and friends.

I had a feeling this news was coming, yet when I opened the page and saw, Terry Hoeppner: 1947 -2007, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
It’s only when someone’s gone that we realize the measure of a man isn’t based on his wins and losses but rather how people remember him.
You’ll be missed, Hep, and that’s the highest compliment I can think of.

Being from Cincinnati you would hear the random interview on local radio from Coach Hep, I never was a redhawk or hoosier, but that coach was a class act all the way.

My condolences to the family and players. If there ever was such a thing as a perfect fit for a coach and school, this was it. I wish for nothing but IU success for years to come.

Legends are never forgotten. RIP Hep

Such sad news. Condolences to the Hoeppner family.

Damn damn damn.

RIP, Coach. God bless those he left behind, family, friends, and players.

RIP

Sounds like he casted a tall shadow.

Found some quotes:
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/terry_hoeppner/

A fighter until the end. His win against Iowa will stand as one of the sport’s most inspiring moments and a sign of where he might have taken the program.

i literally covered my mouth and sighed as soon as the page opened. tragic.

This is such terrible news. I’m so, so sorry for Coach Hoeppner’s family and friends as well as for the Indiana and Miami families. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

I’m kind of a Hoosier fan (my dad studied there for a while), and I really hope Indiana will be able to recover from this as a program. It’ll be tough, though. On Oct. 30, 1971, TCU coach Jim Pittman dropped dead of a heart attack during the Baylor game. What followed was the worst decade in TCU football history. Hopefully Indiana won’t suffer the same fate.

RIP

Heartbreaking news.

He was a class guy. This is a loss for not just IU and Miami but for all of us.

Very sad, thoughts and condolences

Randy Walker
 Bo Schembeckler
 and now
 Terry Hoeppner
 Three great Miami U coaches in less than a year’s time.
 This hurts us deeply as it does all of College Football.
 Our condolences to Coach H’s family and to IU’s team.
 I propose that each team (Miami U and IU) wear a black band with a rose on it honoring the man’s dream. Perhaps have his coaching years listed too and overall record.
 With the words below- “Never Quit” to remind all who see the players and the band of the man and the men he affected as a coach and friend.
 Orson if it’s not too much a link to ACS (American Cancer Society) on the sidebar and Coach’s vs Cancer might be apropo.