Youngstown Connections Run Deep for Mark Stoops, Kentucky Football

This Saturday No. 9 Kentucky will host a team from Youngstown after Mark Stoops surpassed Bear Bryant to become the winningest head coach in program history. None of it would be possible without Youngstown.

The city that shaped Mark Stoops helped the Wildcats cultivate an identity with lasting power at a place few thought football would ever succeed. As he guides the Kentucky football program through uncharted waters, the Youngstown native is still Youngstown through and through. Vince Marrow, his old friend and righthand man for a decade in Lexington, describes that mentality that connects Stoops, Youngstown, and the Kentucky football program.

“We don’t back down from nobody.”

The Florida Gators agree.

Never back down. pic.twitter.com/onJmzH3cvG

— Kentucky Football (@UKFootball) September 11, 2022

What Makes Youngstown Coaches Tick

If Miami (OH) is the cradle of coaches, Youngstown is the bassinet. It’s not just the Stoopses and Pelinis that have succeeded at traditional college football powerhouses. Mark Dantonio took Michigan State to the CFB Playoff, Kansas played in the Orange Bowl with Mark Mangino on the sidelines and Jim Tressel (the current Youngstown State president) won National Championships in the FCS and FBS. The list of successful players is even longer.

“I just think it’s a unique culture that we grew up in. The environment, the toughness, the edge, a lot of us grew up with playing football,” said Mike Stoops. “Football was a way of life for us and for a lot of people that grew up in Northeastern Ohio. That was really the fabric of the community.”

A steel-mill town that thrived as a manufacturing community, more than 165,000 people called Youngstown home when Mark Stoops was born in the 60s. As jobs left the area in the 90s, that number has now dwindled to just over 65,000.

“Our parents worked very hard and that’s why we are very similar to people in Kentucky and I relate to a lot of people in Eastern Kentucky because it’s hard work,” said Marrow. “Me and Mark, we didn’t grow up with a lot, but if we were poor, we didn’t know that. I think the strain, guys doing their work, going the extra mile really produces good coaches out of there.”

Hard work is only part of the equation. In order to succeed, particularly in the world of recruiting, one must be able to relate to folks from all walks of life. Youngstown in the mid-20th century was a melting pot of immigrant families from various backgrounds.

“You gotta be a people person to be successful in football or basketball or baseball…” Marrow said. “They want you to go to your kids’ games. They just treat you — it ain’t dog eat dog — they treat you like a man. That’s what I love about him, all of his brothers and that family.”

Like Father, Like Son

The family patriarch, Ron Stoops, worked multiple jobs while raising a family of six. His primary job was at Cardinal Mooney High School, where he taught history and served as the defensive coordinator for Ohio coaching legend Don Bucci. Many nights were spent with the elder Stoops watching 16-millimeter projected onto the refrigerator during dinner.

Vince Marrow’s memories of Ron Stoops aren’t from the football field. One day the all-state athlete forgot to bring his textbook to Stoops’ class.

“This guy is one of the greatest athletes I’ve seen, but he’s not going anywhere because he can’t even remember to bring his books to class,” Marrow recounted in his best Stoops voice. He told the Herald-Leader in 2017 that address left him stuck in his chair, shoulders slumped, crying in the back of the classroom.

“I’m a 6-4, 200-pound guy, an All-State, an All-American player, and he just broke me down,” Marrow said.

It was the tough love Marrow needed. He eventually went somewhere, playing basketball at Youngstown State before transferring to complete his career on the football field at Toledo. During a difficult time in his life, the Stoops family served as a guidepost for the man we affectionately know as the Big Dog.

“I wish people got to know his father. There’s a reason why those boys are who they are, because of their Dad. He was a very no-nonsense guy, but he cared about people,” Marrow shared this week. “I like to tell people the story of me coming from the inner city to Cardinal Mooney, being an African-American, I just lost my Dad and he replaced that void with me at school. I just think if you guys got to know his Dad, you guys would know, you wouldn’t be shocked how everybody else turned out to be.”

Ron Stoops suffered a heart attack shortly after Cardinal Mooney defeated crosstown rival Boardman. Mark was playing football at Iowa when his father passed. Their father was buried with Mark’s No. 41 Iowa jersey (a number all of the brothers wore) and Bob’s Rose Bowl ring.

Ron Stoops led by example. The lessons Mark learned from his father weren’t just on the football field. Fifty years later Mark Stoops took in Alex Montgomery. The wide receiver’s career was derailed by injuries. Without a family to fall back on, Stoops refused to let him “float away.” Montgomery eventually moved in and became a part of the family. They stood by his side on Senior Day.

Long Road to Success for Stoops at Kentucky

When Mitch Barnhart introduced Mark Stoops as the head coach of the Wildcats football team in December of 2012, Kentucky was in the cellar of the Southeastern Conference. Even Vanderbilt was running the score up on the Cats at Commonwealth Stadium.

“I’m highly motivated to build this program to national prominence,” Stoops said in front of a crowd at the Nutter Fieldhouse. “There will be no magic wand to getting this done. We’re going to do it with a blue-collar mentality. We’re going to go to work each and every day.”

Rivals scoffed at the opening statement, but he was proven true on all accounts, thanks in large part to that mentality he learned in Youngstown.

“It was hard when we first came here in 2013, losing to Western Kentucky,” Marrow recalled. “Wow, we really gotta go to work, we gotta really recruit and we gotta really change this roster over.’ Watching him go through the early pains of losing games, then starting to win.”

It took time to rebuild the roster, but that was only one step in the process. A methodical speaker in public settings, he was a people-person behind closed doors, recruiting athletes to change the product on the field while rallying boosters to change how those players prepared to win on Saturdays. The Kentucky football program he inherited looks nothing like the Top 10 team that is playing at Kroger Field Saturday afternoon. Throughout the changes, he’s adapted and learned, while never straying far from his roots.

“I don’t think that he’s afraid to look at himself and say ‘What can I do better?'” said Frank Buffano, another Youngstown native who has served in various capacities on Stoops’ staff since 2013.

“He’s an unbelievable guy to his players. They’re first and foremost. I think that carries a lot of weight with these guys. They know he cares about them and he’s going to do everything he can for them on and off the field. He’s learning as we’re all learning. You better learn. If you think you know it all, it’s gonna smack you in the face. If that happens you better be ready to bounce back.”

Saturday’s game against Youngstown State will serve as a celebration for all of Mark Stoops’ accomplishments through his first ten years at Kentucky. More than 300 friends and family members from his hometown will be there as the Wildcats honor the winningest head coach in program history; it’s a title the head coach reluctantly carries.

“He don’t take a lot of credit and a lot of other coaches take credit,” said Marrow. “He’s like, ‘Man, I don’t want my name in the same breath as Bear Bryant.’ I told him, ‘Listen, when we took over, it took a Bear Bryant to do that.’“

Just like life in Youngstown, nothing has ever come easily for the Kentucky football program. Mark Stoops has shown the Big Blue Nation there is a path to success by following the lessons he learned in his hometown.

“It just taught you at a young age that you had to go work for what you get,” said Stoops. “Nothing’s going to be given to you, nothing’s promised. Go make your own way. “