The wise, old oracle label doesn't fit Bob Stoops.
The old part we can immediately debate. Stoops enters his 18th season at Oklahoma at age 55. A recent contract extension will keep him in Norman until at least 2021.
When it is suggested it might be time to start talking about him retiring at OU, Stoops slams on the brakes.
"As things change, you never know what can come," he shot back with feistiness uncharacteristic of an oracle.
"Bob has a way of exuding confidence," says Joe Castiglione, Stoops' boss and the Sooner' athletic director for all of the past 17 years. "Sometimes people misunderstand that. He is not an arrogant guy.
"People challenge him. He's very quick to hold his ground."
We're used to it or should be by now. The public eye has seen much of the coach whose Youngstown, Ohio, attitude has been a foundation for a national championship and nine conference titles at OU.
Now they will have to listen to him. Such is the role of the man who is currently the nation's longest-tenured FBS coach at one school. (Kansas State's Bill Snyder retired from 2006-08.) Stoops now inhabits a space once occupied by both Amos Alonzo Stagg (41 years at the University of Chicago) and Joe Paterno (46 years at Penn State).
People want to know what he thinks. When Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer stepped down at Virginia Tech, it left a former Iowa safety -- and a valued assistant with both Snyder and Steve Spurrier -- with that unlikely label of seniority.
"One day," Stoops reminded with the proper humility, "ahead of Kirk Ferentz."
Yes, the title is only his by about 24 hours. Stoops was hired on Dec. 1, 1998, one day before Ferentz at Iowa. But only one of them is the nation's winningest coach (179 career victories) since that moment. Only one of them is No. 1 against the AP Top 25 (55-28). Only one of them leads the Power Five with a 96-8 home record over the last 17 years.
Only one of them is Oklahoma's winningest coach -- beating out legends Barry Switzer and Bud Wilkinson.
Only one of them is the face of Oklahoma, this year's winner of the Best in College Sports title from CBS Sports. Compiling and calculating success from FBS programs in football, men's basketball, women's basketball and two "wild card" sports, the standings are assembled and the Sooners came out on top for 2015-16.
OU claimed the honor with a 2015 Big 12 football title, a trip to the College Football Playoff, a 2016 Final Four berth in basketball as well as national championships in softball, women's gymnastics and men's gymnastics. Along the way, Buddy Hield became the Naismith Player of the Year for basketball coach Lon Kruger.
Arguably, none of it would have happened without a series of fortunate football events. Castiglione and OU were deciding between Stoops and Ferentz in late 1998. As the story goes, Iowa wanted to have a conversation with one more candidate (Ferentz). When he heard that Iowa was going to talk to Ferentz, Stoops found a phone, called Castiglione and a partnership was formed.
Stoops, his athletic director and OU president David Boren are now the only three persons (in FBS) at the same jobs as they were in December 1998.
"It doesn't happen in recent times," Castiglione said.
The Stoops job search became legend if only because it ended in one of the biggest hiring home runs in history. There was no search committee. Castiglione vetted the candidates himself. He had to. There could be no mistake this time. Oklahoma football itself was at stake. The previous four years under Howard Schnellenberger and John Blake had been the worst in OU history.
"If you could have been around here the first month or two [to see] how down, beat up and belittled this program was ... it was bad," Stoops said. "I was shocked when I got here. Just the players' overall perception of themselves."
Castiglione recalled: "It was a very tumultuous time for Oklahoma football. I literally had people following me everywhere I went ... I would go to airport and someone would pop up from around a kiosk. I'd be boarding a flight and people would ask, 'Are you going to get us a coach?'"
At the beginning of a new century, Stoops became the vanguard of coaches who delivered right away. Beginning in 2000, Stoops led a group of seven coaches who won national championships within their first three seasons at a school. (Larry Coker, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer, Les Miles, Nick Saban and Gene Chizik are the others.).
What followed has been matched by few. Stoops has more 10-win seasons (13) than Nick Saban (10). No other Big 12 program has more than two conference titles since Stoops arrived. In that span, the Sooners have won conference championships more than half the time (nine in 17 years).
The great Wilkinson lost nine home games in his 17 seasons, one more than Stoops in his 17.
The program flipped quickly. Those formerly downtrodden Sooners suddenly had to endure constant rumors of Stoops leaving. His name was attached most prominently over the years to Florida, Notre Dame and (in the early 2000s) Cleveland Browns.
"I didn't have to be a head coach," Stoops said. "It wasn't going to be the end of the world if that didn't happen."
Rick Rundle knows. Stoops' long-time buddy used to supply Chevys to the Florida coaching staff. When the Gators defensive coordinator left for OU, a piece of him stayed in Gainesville, Florida.
"There's the Bobby we know," Rundle said. "Go out, play golf and drink some beers and the one we see publicly."
Gainesville Bobby once coveted one of Rundle's special edition Camaros as a loaner.
"Six speed, T-top," Rundle recalled. "He wanted that car so bad. I said, 'Go ahead and drive it.' He went down to Miami [to recruit] and came back without one of the spoilers."
In 2011, Stoops got Rundle tickets to the Sooners' game at Florida State. Around noon on the day of the game, Stoops called with an odd question.
You want to go to the Burger King with me? Every now and then I like a Whopper.
"Me and him and [strength coach] Jerry Schmidt are walking down the street," Rundle said. "Everyone's looking at us."
Those are the stories you don't know. On the field, Stoops became Big Game Bob. You may recall a fake punt deep in his own territory that helped beat Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 2003. Current quarterback Baker Mayfield is almost a throwback to Stoops' swashbuckling style in the early days.
The coach has spoken deeply and eloquently in NCAA issues. Even when in 2006, when Oklahoma was an NCAA issue. Quarterback Rhett Bomar took improper benefits while working at Norman's Big Red Motors.
Bomar was immediately dismissed. That resonates today in light of the Jeffrey Simmons scandal at Mississippi State. With only nine scholarship seniors in 2006, the Sooners won 11 games. It was among Stoops' best coaching jobs.
Seven former Stoops assistants have become head coaches. In the BCS era, he was the only coach to win Rose, Orange, Fiesta and Sugar bowls. OU became a sort of Quarterback U with two Heisman Trophy winners in six years (Jason White in 2003, Sam Bradford in 2008).
Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium has been expanded twice since Stoops arrived. There hasn't been an empty seat since he got there -- a sellout streak of 104 games.
Athletic department revenue has more than doubled to $134 million since 2005. In the middle of an overall budget crisis at OU, the self-sufficient athletic department is writing a check to the university for more than $6 million in cash per year.
So when Stoops' average annual salary was raised to $6 million recently (third-highest nationally), there wasn't a peep of protest. The profits of football are a big reason those softball and gymnastics teams were able to prosper.
It is a full circle, then. If the issue was not enough championships at OU when Stoops arrived, the bar has been raised. One nagging criticism of Stoops has been not enough national championships. Following that magical 2000 title, the Sooners played for BCS/College Football Playoff titles in 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2015.
"I don't know why we don't celebrate those conference championships enough," Castiglione said. "It's like, 'Oh well, another Big 12 championship.' We're like ... what? These things are so special and they're so hard to win."
The run isn't going to end anytime soon -- it seems -- for Stoops or Oklahoma athletics. Ask the oracle.
