Early Life and Playing Career
Stoops is one of six children born to Ron, Sr. and Evelyn "Dee Dee" Stoops in Youngstown, Ohio. He attended Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown, Ohio, where his father was an assistant football coach and defensive coordinator.
After high school Stoops played for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes (1982–1984) as a strong safety. He played on the same team with quarterback Chuck Long and was a two-time all-Big Ten Conference selection.
Stoops was signed as a free agent in May 1985 by the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL), but was cut on August 27. In February 1986 he signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Falcons, but he missed the Falcons May 9–15 minicamp with a ruptured gall bladder from an auto accident and was later cut by Atlanta.
In the summer of 1987, Stoops became one of the original 80 Arena Football League (AFL) players when he suited up for the Pittsburgh Gladiators. Stoops was a key member of the Gladiators that season who went onto play in the inaugural ArenaBowl, losing to Denver, 45–16.
Stoops took time off from his job as a graduate assistant at Iowa to play as a replacement player for a limited time in 1987 with the Chicago Bears during the NFL strike. Wearing #44, he played safety in three games with the Bears that year, suffering a concussion in the an October 4 victory (35–3) against the Philadelphia Eagles. Other former Iowa players who were members of the National Football League Players Association had harsh words for Stoops. He responded, "I don't give a damn what they think. I wasn't trying to hurt anybody, and deep down, I think they know that. But if they feel that way, fine, don't ever talk to me again".
Returning to the Arena League, in the six-game AFL regular season, Stoops caught 22 passes, scored three touchdowns, made 15 tackles and recorded an interception, playing both wide receiver and defensive back positions.
Read more about this topic: Mike Stoops
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, playing and/or career:
“It was common practice for me to take my children with me whenever I went shopping, out for a walk in a white neighborhood, or just felt like going about in a white world. The reason was simple enough: if a black man is alone or with other black men, he is a threat to whites. But if he is with children, then he is harmless, adorable.”
—Gerald Early (20th century)
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All those who dwell in the depths find their happiness in being like flying fish for once and playing on the uppermost crests of the waves. What they value most in things is that they have a surface, their “epidermality”Msit venia verbo.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)