The Quest for IU Football Glory: Bill Mallory

By: Pete DiPrimio
IUHoosiers.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bill Mallory, who delivered more victories (69) and bowl games (six) than any coach in Indiana University football history, has passed, but his impact never will. This is an excerpt from Pete DiPrimio's upcoming book on Indiana University football, "The Quest for IU Football Glory," set to be published by IU Press in the summer of 2019.

THE MALLORY YEARS

Bill Mallory jabs an index finger into the air the way a gladiator would a spear.

"It should have been seven bowls!"

He spits out the words like verbal bullets. His eyes narrow. His voice hardens. Physically he sits in the Memorial Stadium press box. Emotionally he is back in 1994, near the end of the most remarkable football run Indiana has ever seen.

Mallory took Indiana to six bowls in eight years, but in his mind, it was seven bowls. In 1994, IU finished 6-5. It received an invitation to the Motor City Bowl.

Mallory wanted to go. Players and assistant coaches wanted to go. But citing costs, Indiana administrators shot it down.

There would be no bowl.

"That still irks me," Mallory says.

Before Mallory arrived, IU had been to just two bowls in a history that began in 1887. It lost in the Rose Bowl to USC in January of 1968, and beat Brigham Young in the Holiday Bowl in December of 1979.

Mallory coached the Hoosiers to a football pinnacle. It was not to the height of, say, Ohio State, but it reached a level never achieved before or since.

He preferred substance over style, toughness over flash. He coached hard-nosed, fundamentally sound teams, which meant tough coaching that wouldn't always meet today's politically correct standards. If you had to grab a guy's face mask or get a little physical to make a point, you did it. If you had to speak the hard truth, and coach even harder, you did that as well.

It produced bowl victories, accolades and more.

"I expected that 100 percent commitment," Mallory says. "It wasn't a sometimes thing. It was an all-times thing."

Mallory was famous for clichés (jaw locking and helmet strapping were among them), and for the impact they made based on his passion.

"He was not what you would call eloquent," former award-winning Bloomington Herald-Times sports editor/columnist Bob Hammel says, "but nobody moved a crowd better than he did."

Hammel offers an example from 1988.

"They'd lost to Kentucky the year before when somebody whiffed on a block during a fourth-and-goal run and AT (Anthony Thompson) got tackled.

"Bill was really fired up that next season. Kentucky was the home opener. He was at an IU fan event in Bloomington the week of the game. Here are these businessmen in suits and they were ready to hit people, he had them so ready to play Kentucky. You can imagine what his players were like. He said, 'We're going to lock the gates and kick their ass!' It had such an effect. I quoted him. He was not pleased. He was so into it."

No Hoosier coach can match Mallory's six bowls. IU has made just three other bowls in its history.

Beyond that, no IU coach ever started amid so much disarray. Mallory was the program's third coach in less than two years. Lee Corso was fired in 1982. Sam Wyche was hired, then left for the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals 10 months later.

"Bill came on after an unstable period," Hammel said. "For those players in that first year, he was their third head coach in three years. I'm sure some heads were swimming. It was three totally different philosophies. "

Recruiting was a mess. Apathy was rampant.

And then Mallory went to work.

"Not to make excuses," he says, "but they hadn't done any recruiting in the last few years. Sam Wyche had left within 10 months right after the season to coach the Bengals. Lee Corso was terminated so he didn't do any recruiting.

"They'd done nothing for two years. It was going to be thin city for a while. I knew that."

Mallory also knew how to fix it. It started with a strong staff of assistant coaches, men such as Buck Suhr, George Belu, Steve Stripling, Jim Muehling, Joe Novak and Floyd Keith. They had coached with Mallory for years, developing a chemistry that helped build a winner.

"The staff he had was the best overall coaching staff we ever had here," award-winning radio announcer Don Fischer says. "They proved it over time. Those guys all coached really well and they had to coach well because our teams got better quickly. Indiana went from 0-11 to 4-7 to a bowl game in the third year. Then it continued.

"The staff is what made the difference."

Darn right, Mallory says, in so many words.

"I had a great group of coaches. We'd all been together for a while. That was important."

Mallory's IU run ended after the 1996 season with 69 victories, the most by any coach in program history.

"Bill was the one guy in my experience who actually put a floor under Indiana," Hammel says. "You could count on a .500 season. Back in Indiana's history, which is pathetic, it's in the .300s rather than anything close to .500."

How did Mallory do it?

Do his methods serve as a blueprint for Tom Allen to duplicate?

Let's take a look.

****

Understanding why Bill Mallory thrived at Indiana means understanding Shawn Harper.

Yes, Mallory coached plenty of outstanding players at IU, highlighted by Heisman Trophy runner-up Anthony Thompson.

But the heart of what made Mallory a great coach, and an even better person, is personified by Harper, who was so far under the recruiting radar in high school that he didn't stir up a blip.

Harper came from a rough background in Columbus, Ohio. He'd grown up amid inner city gangs, bounced around from foster home to foster home, and showed little academic discipline, ranking last in his high school graduating class of 157.

But the Independence High School football coach saw promise and got Harper to come out for the team as a senior. He saw more promise and called Mallory, who had extensive contacts in Ohio from his playing and coaching days at Miami of Ohio, and more.

"He said I've got this young man who came out of nothing," Mallory says. "Academically, he's right at the bottom of his class. He's not a dummy, but just no focus. I put him in a junior college (North Iowa Area Community College). Do me a favor. Check him out. I think he could be a good one for you."

Mallory checked. He brought the 6-3, 316-pound Harper in for a recruiting visit.

"I liked him. The coaches did, too. I said, I'm going to make Shawn an offer. Give him an opportunity. He's a young man who deserves that."

Then Mallory went into coaching-force-of-nature mode.

"I sat him down and told him, 'I'll put you on scholarship.' Then I said, 'I'm going to tell you something. First of all you're going to keep your rump clean. You won't do anything to give this program or university a bad name. Understand that? He said yes.

"I said, 'No. 2, you're going to go to class, and your rump is going to sit in the front row, and I'm going to check on you with my (graduate assistants), and you'd better be there, or I'll have you up in the morning at 6 o'clock, and you and I are going to work out and run. It will give me a chance to get my workout done in the morning. I'll get your rump up.' He said, 'Coach, you can count on me.'

"So I got a GA. I said, 'You're assigned to Harper. You check every class and let me know what you find. If he isn't there, that turkey is getting up in the morning.'

"The GA checked him and said, 'Shawn is in class, sitting in the front row. He smiled and gave me a little wave.' That went on for at least two weeks. He was committed."

As a junior college graduate, Harper had two years of eligibility at IU. He wasn't ready to contribute his first season, so Mallory redshirted him. The next year, Harper was ready, and became a starter after the fourth game. As a senior, "He was one of the top offensive linemen in the Big Ten," Mallory says, and earned All-Big Ten honors.

Mallory was interested in more than Harper's football talent. So was Buzz Kurpius, also known as Coach Buzz, IU's associate athletic director for academics who became a mentor, tutor and mother figure for countless Hoosier athletes over the years.

"Shawn was a severe stutterer," Mallory says. "I talked to Buzz and said, 'We have to help him. He's really struggling with his speech.' She got a speech therapist. The lady did a wonderful job. She was with him during his entire time at IU."

Harper wasn't drafted by an NFL team, but did play eight games over several seasons for a couple of teams, including the Indianapolis Colts, before spending time in NFL Europe.

Finally, he realized it was time to move beyond football.

Harper visited Mallory and told him he wanted to get into the security business. Mallory's brother, Tom, was an orthopedic surgeon whose building had a security service.

"Tom said, 'I'll go to bat for him,'" Mallory said.

The company hired him. Three years later, Harper started his own security business, American Service Protection.

But Harper had another goal -- he wanted to be a motivational speaker.

He talked to Mallory again.

"He said, I want to talk to those who are having difficulties. I want to talk to juniors and seniors in high school, and go to juvenile delinquent centers on the side."

Harper did that, as well. He's become a renowned motivational speaker

"Two years ago I'm in Naples. Fla.," Mallory says. "Shawn calls me. He said, 'I'm speaking to high schools in Naples. Would you come?' I did. He was impressive.

"At Indiana he was a young man who everyone took an interest in -- Buzz and her staff, my coaches, professors. I can't say enough about that how Shawn took advantage of that."
Without Bill Mallory, it might never have happened.

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