Dee Stoops, matriarch of college football’s Stoops coaching family, dies at 88
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Evelyn “Dee” Stoops, mother of Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops, died early Tuesday morning at her home in Youngstown, Ohio.
“We had been anticipating it probably since last Friday,” Mark said in his normal appearance on the SEC coaches teleconference just minutes after UK confirmed the news Wednesday. “She passed peacefully at home with my other brothers and sisters by her side.”
Evelyn Stoops, 88, was the matriarch of the Youngstown family that produced three Power Four head coaches, including Hall of Famer and Oklahoma national champion Bob Stoops. Former Arizona coach Mike Stoops, the third of four stoops brothers that also includes former Youngstown State assistant Ron Stoops Jr., is currently linebackers coach on younger brother Mark’s UK staff.
The four brothers all chose to follow their father, Ron Stoops Sr., into the coaching profession, but it was Evelyn who watched their careers with pride after Ron Sr. died from a massive heart attack suffered while coaching a high school game in 1988. Mark was a student at Iowa at the time of his father’s death.
“My mother was a very special person to me and to so many people,” Mark said Wednesday. “Much like my father, she was the type of person that had a great impact on everybody she had met in her life and certainly her family.
“I lost my dad when I was relatively young, in college, and my mother has been a rock to all of us. Very special woman.”
With his mother’s health situation deteriorating, Mark coached Kentucky during a 48-20 loss at Florida on Saturday. On the teleconference Wednesday, he confirmed he plans to remain with the team in advance of a game against Auburn on Saturday that could be crucial in extending UK’s eight-year bowl streak.
“If I know my mom, she would be telling me to do what I’m doing,” Mark said. “Get my butt back to work and try to make this team better.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2024 at 2:12 PM.
