Meet the coach
Mark Stoops is the winningest football coach in UK history
When legendary football coach Nick Saban retired from the University of Alabama after the 2023 season, the University of Kentucky’s Mark Stoops suddenly had a new title. The Wildcat boss became the “Dean of SEC Football,” as he now has been the head coach in the Southeastern Conference longer than any other coach. In addition, Stoops’ 11 years and 63 victories entering the 2024 season are the most of any football coach in UK history, including Paul “Bear” Bryant, who had 60 wins in eight years from 1946 to 1953.
So, how does Stoops, who turned 57 in July, feel about his new title?
“Well, I consider it very good, very blessed. How does it make me feel? Old,” Stoops says with a smile. “I think it goes to show you the challenges that we all face, each and every day. The past two or three years, the landscape of college athletics, in general, has changed dramatically. As you can imagine with that, SEC football, it just seems to elevate some of the challenges.”
He says he’s excited about meeting the future with flexibility and willingness to change.
“I think it’s fair to say that you’d better learn to adapt quickly, or you won’t last. So now that I’m the longest-tenured coach in the SEC at one school, I think it just brings awareness to how challenging this is.”
When Stoops arrived at Kentucky in late November 2012 to take his first job as a head coach, the Wildcats were coming off a dismal 2-10 season, including an embarrassing 40-0 loss to Vanderbilt before a small crowd at home. He had been the defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Florida State for three years, including three season-ending bowl victories under coach Jimbo Fisher.
Why come to Kentucky, a school that has struggled mightily to field a consistent winning program for a long time?
“I just felt like I was prepared for a real challenge,” says Stoops. “Any competitor is up for any challenge. I didn’t walk into this blind. I didn’t think it (success) could just happen overnight, not back then. There was no (transfer) portal. … So, I knew I was in for a real grind, and I knew that there was going to be very dark times, but I was prepared for it.
“It wasn’t easy. There’s no job in this league that’s easy. We all have different obstacles, different challenges. Like I said, I knew what I was getting into.”
Stoops notes that he had been through a similar situation when he was defensive coordinator and his brother Mike was head coach at the University of Arizona in 2004.
“I saw the challenges and the frustrations and the heartaches, but I also saw the other side,” he says.
However, his then-wife, Chantel, had some serious reservations about the UK job at the very beginning.
“I think she looked at it and she did some research, and she said to me, ‘Are you absolutely out of your mind? Are you crazy?’” recalls Stoops. “I think she also had confidence and knew that I could get it done, but I’m not sure if she wanted to endure that.”
After the couple got to know former UK Coach Rich Brooks, Stoops says, “she embraced it and encouraged me to take it.” Brooks, a former NFL coach, did well at UK with four bowl trips in seven seasons during the 2000s. “Coach Brooks has always been supportive and just always been somebody that I could lean on, and was very truthful. If you know anything about Coach Brooks, he doesn’t pull any punches. So, I could relate to that. I think he and I are very similar in a lot of ways, and I’ve always had such great respect for him …
“He’s always been a friend and he’s always been a mentor, and I could pick up the phone and talk to him at any time.”
Stoops eventually found remarkable success at Kentucky, which became a Top 25 team after early struggles in rebuilding the program, including his first season, which saw the Wildcats lose 10 of 12 games. The coach later guided the Cats to two memorable 10-win seasons in 2018 and 2021 with two Citrus Bowl victories. (As the result of an NCAA investigation, in early August, UK vacated the 10 wins from the 2021 season, bringing Stoops’ overall record to 63-65.)
Stoops says this year’s addition to the SEC of two football powerhouses, Texas and Oklahoma, is neither good nor bad for Kentucky. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “It is what it is. Let’s embrace it. It’s new. Let’s see where it goes. It doesn’t matter what I think or anybody else. It’s a reality. That’s certainly one thing I’ve really taken on from my brother, Bob (who led University of Oklahoma to the 2000 national championship) … I really don’t deal with hypotheticals.”
Following the 2023 season, UK’s Mark Stoops became the longest-tenured head football coach in the SEC. Photo: Wade Harris
Blue-collar background
A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he played football, Stoops credits his early years in Youngstown, Ohio, for his work ethic and coaching success. Stoops, who is Catholic, attended Cardinal Mooney High School along with his five siblings. The four brothers played football for their dad, who was the school’s defensive coordinator.
“I have two sisters, and my mother obviously was the rock in our family, like most,” Stoops says. “My father was an amazing man that influenced thousands and thousands of people, and did it in a very humble, quiet way. But I think my favorite memory, if I could lump it in together, is just the way we grew up, very simple. There were eight of us that lived in a three-bedroom home, and that’s a fact.
“And I shared a bedroom with me and three brothers. I was the youngest of four boys in one room, and my sisters shared a room, and my mom and dad were in another. But I’m proud of the way we grew up, because I loved Youngstown. I loved the tough, blue-collar nature that it was. And faith played a huge role, and the community raised us. I think the way we grew up definitely shaped us for whatever success we have had, and I’m grateful for it.”
Stoops, who has two sons, and his staff have continued to have summer cookouts for the team every week, something that they have done for several years. “The reason I started doing that is because I felt distant from my players in the summer,” he says. “I don’t like being away from them very long. So we started this, and it’s been a good concept.”
From gridiron to glass
Marks Stoops is not only the “Dean of SEC football”—he’s a partner in RD1 Spirits, a distillery in Lexington.
During the summer of 2022, when Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey introduced Kentucky coach Mark Stoops at the annual SEC Football Media Days festivities in Atlanta, he congratulated Stoops for his team’s success and even mentioned Stoops’ distillery business.
Sankey pointed out that the Kentucky Wildcats were coming off a very good 10-3 season, including the Vrbo Citrus Bowl championship win over Iowa, but added, in a lighthearted manner, “In keeping with the tradition of Kentucky, Mark Stoops is a majority owner of a bourbon distillery. The facility makes Wm. Tarr bourbon. There are no samplings, so I heard the disappointments and the groans in the room when it was mentioned. Big sales this spring when it produced a special edition commemorating Kentucky’s Citrus Bowl championship.”
Stoops replied with a smile, “Really appreciate you giving me a plug to the bourbon. I’ll make sure I send a case to the commissioner’s office for all you fellas to sip on, preferably on a Sunday if we get a bad call and we have a few choice words.”
A couple of months earlier, well-known Lexington priest Jim Sichko got Stoops to sign a bottle of bourbon for Pope Francis, and the missionary priest personally hand-delivered the autographed bottle to the Pope in Rome.
Stoops says RD1 Spirits is doing well. “We’re expanding. We’re building a new distillery. We have a project going on in downtown Lexington, in Turner Commons. That’ll be a beautiful space and a new venue for people to learn about bourbon, to taste bourbon, to buy bourbon and socialize. And it’ll be a beautiful place with a small distillery.
“I think we’ve won over 60 major awards in the last year and a half, so it’s really getting good reviews, and doing very well.”
Since Stoops is busy with his year-round football duties, he says his business partners, including CEO Mike Tetterton, do a “great job of running that company.”
