Thread: Hayden Fry's legacy goes beyond a coaching tree

Hayden Fry's legacy goes beyond a coaching tree featuring Bob Stoops, Kirk Ferentz

BY TRAVIS HANEY, Staff Writer, thaney@opubco.com
Published: December 23, 2011

A barn in West Texas.
That was, in an odd way, the birthplace of so many lives spent in and defined by college football.

Of Bob Stoops and Kirk Ferentz, whose teams will play one another Friday in the Insight Bowl. Of Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema. Of Bo Pelini. Of Bill Snyder. Of Ted Thompson. Of Bum Phillips. Of Mike Stoops and Mark Stoops, Dan McCarney and Jim Leavitt.

You know where this is going, probably. It's the coaching tree of Hayden Fry, the man who somehow managed to pull a rabbit from a helmet at SMU, North Texas and, ultimately and most notably, Iowa.

(AP Photo/Rodney White)

But you don't know quite where this is going, to that barn in Odessa.

That was where the greatest lessons in Fry's life were delivered in colorfully poignant, albeit painful and almost cruel, methods.

Fry's father, a tough-as-tumbleweed cattle farmer, would grab a horsewhip and take him behind the barn, out of the sight of the boy's mother. He'd pop him one good time and, then, offer a piece of advice that was never to be forgotten.

Read more: Oklahoma football: Hayden Fry's legacy goes beyond a coaching tree featuring Bob Stoops, Kirk Ferentz | NewsOK.com

Fry = Stud

I did not know he was @ SMU and North Texas.
He has a long line of distinguished coaches that come from his lineage.
He put Iowa Football on the map.