Leading the Charge

Every college football head coaching job is tough in its own way. Every job presents its own trials, its own pressures. For Miami (Ohio) coach Terry Hoeppner, some of the most unique and heavy challenges in the history of college football surround him and try to stare him down every day. Every college football head coach has an office, too. None of them are like Hoeppner’s office complex. His place of work is more like a museum, a monument to the greatness that is Miami’s “Cradle of Coaches,” with pictures of former Miami coaches Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Ara Parseghian, John Pont and Bill Mallory constantly looking over Hoeppner’s shoulder. Hoeppner always figured he knew what it was all about until he actually moved into that office in January, 1999, becoming Miami’s 31st head football coach. “I had been there 13 years as an assistant coach, so you’d