Time Running Out on Legend at Cal Lutheran

They were twin stars in the football universe, present at the birth of their respective worlds, bright lights blazing across the sky for two decades and now, ironically, also fading in tandem.

Bob Shoup and Tom Landry.

Each man was the only coach his team had ever known. Each rose to his zenith in the winter of 1971 with a championship. Each stumbled through the late ‘80s, and each plummeted to his nadir in the summer of ’89.

Landry was absent this summer from the California Lutheran University campus, site of the Dallas Cowboy training camp. He was home in Texas, having been fired by new Cowboy owner Jerry Jones several months earlier.

And Shoup was in his CLU office, a bunker against the onslaught of his own administration, which announced last month that Shoup won’t be back as head coach of the Kingsmen after this season, his 27th.

What could be Shoup’s last season begins today when CLU visits Sonoma State at 1 p.m. Both the coach and the administration agreed that Shoup would coach this season, then take a sabbatical. Shoup had said he would then reassess the situation and decide if he wanted to return. CLU officials said that the decision had been made. He wouldn’t return.

“The university has now accepted my premise that there are real questions about my contract that have yet to be resolved, “ said Shoup, who has hired an attorney and has threatened CLU with legal action. “We are going to take our time to work things out, think things through. This is a solvable issue. There was just a misunderstanding.

“My tenure status is not what it would be for a normal coach. You don’t normally have tenure as a coach. My point is that I have a legal right to return (after a sabbatical). Their point is that it will be awkward to have an interim coach. I understand that. I just didn’t like the way things were handled.

“But a year from now, who knows what changes there will have been in people and programs.”

School officials have refused to comment on the situation, but it was a change in programs that started the problems.

After compiling one of the best won-lost records in college football (182-81-6) in his 26-year reign, after 13 NAIA District 3 titles, after three trips to the national championship game and the triumph there in ‘71, Shoup saw his world start to crumble last fall. The program Shoup once labeled “the Notre Dame of the West” had decided to lower its expectations.

Four years ago, the CLU football team, amid much hoopla, moved up to Division II of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and joined the Western Football Conference. After years of beating up on the likes of Azusa Pacific and Whittier, CLU was taking a step up to play with the bigger boys.

As it turned out, the big boys were a little too big. In the ensuing four seasons, Cal Lutheran’s record was 16-27; in conference play, a disastrous 2-19.

Shoup wanted to fight rather than switch. CLU officials took the opposite stance.

Last October, the school voted to drop out of the WFC and down to Division III to join the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

To some, it seemed like the death knell for one of Southern California’s most competitive small-college programs. In the SCIAC, athletic scholarships are prohibited. So is spring football. And off-campus recruiting is limited.

Shoup openly opposed the change.

It got ugly. At one point, Shoup accused his own administration of suppressing an independent report commissioned by the school and written by the athletic director of Pacific Lutheran, an NAIA Division II school in Tacoma, Wash., that advised against the move. Administration officials denied the charge.

“I feel disappointed for past, present and future football players,” Shoup said at the time. “Unfortunately, I feel like prejudice triumphed over understanding.”

The CLU administration triumphed over Shoup.

It never would have happened in the old days.

It sometimes seems that Bob Shoup’s whole life has been a two-minute drill. But through the years, every time he’s been bogged down, about to be sacked, time and opportunity running out, he has found a path.

Flashback to the 1940s: Shoup is attending Marshall Fundamental junior high in Pasadena. Marshall has a football program and Shoup wants to be part of it.

But he’s too small. The minimum weight to make the team is 120 pounds. Shoup weighs 118 1/2.

But he finds two padlocks, sews them to the inside of his trunks and, wearing a grin, proudly steps on the scales.

He makes the team.

Flashback to the 1950s: Shoup’s father, Donald, is a coach at schools in Crete, Neb., and later in Pasadena. But Bob toys with several other career ideas--doctor, life-insurance salesman, businessman.

Then, Bob Shoup becomes exposed to coaching the way many do, by taking the reins of a team of youngsters. After a season of youth softball, he scratches his head and exclaims, “You mean people get paid for this!”

Soon, he, too, is getting paid. In 1956, he starts his coaching career at North Torrance High and goes on to win league championships in everything from basketball to tennis to baseball.

His course in life is set.

Flashback to the 1960s: Shoup becomes the first football coach at California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, a new, struggling institution.

The team has few players, no equipment, no field, no place to practice and, everybody figures, no chance.

Even if it had someplace to go, it has no way to get there.

The squad temporarily practices in an orange grove. Shoup secures transportation at a war surplus store--an old U. S. Navy bus--and the football team has its wheels.

By season’s end, this ragtag crew, just 33 strong, has actually achieved a modicum of respectability. Shoup’s pseudo junior varsity finishes 3-4.

Flashback to the 1970s: Lean times have hit CLC. The Lutheran Church, owner and operator of the school, has decided to shut it down because it is a chronic money loser.

On the field, though, it has become a winner.

Shoup’s coaching career reaches its pinnacle late in 1971 when the Kingsmen beat Westminster College of Pennsylvania in the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II title game.

The waves of euphoria rising from Mount Clef Stadium smash the plans to shut CLC’s doors. The school is saved.

“That,” according to Shoup, “was the turning point.”

Even today, despite all his triumphs, Shoup clings steadfastly to his roots.

“The most successful teams are easy to relate to,” he said, “but I think one of the greatest coaching jobs I ever did was 1962 when we started.”

The stories from that year seem endless. On one trip to Claremont College, the Navy bus broke down. A call for help went out. Claremont wound up sending its players to pick up the stranded CLC team.

The following year, Shoup’s team posted a winning record, 5-4.

Then came 1964 and the ladies’ blue slippers, perhaps the most celebrated pair of slippers since Dorothy slipped hers on in the Land of Oz.

“We found them in a motel in Colorado Springs,” Shoup said. “The manager threw them in the team bag. I guess he thought they belonged to one of the players. We started taking them wherever we went. We’ve won 90% of our games when we’ve had those slippers with us.”

Players would rub and kiss them as part of their pregame ritual--and the team would win.

And win and win.

After going unbeaten (8-0-2) in the championship year of ‘71, the Kingsmen had a couple of mediocre years, then, in 1974, became a national small-college powerhouse for nearly a decade. From ’74 through ‘82, CLC was 76-15-2, with two more appearances in the championship game, although it lost both times.

Recruiting in an area rich with excellent football programs, from USC and UCLA on down, Shoup not only managed to compete nationally at his level but also to produce players good enough to go on to the National Football League. Running back Hank Bauer (San Diego Chargers) and linebacker Brian Kelley (New York Giants) had moments of stardom in pro ball. So did linebacker Sam Cvijanovich, a Canadian Football League Rookie of the Year. Tight end Ralph Miller played for the Houston Oilers, defensive lineman Charlie McShane for the Seattle Seahawks. In all, more than a dozen Kingsmen have gone on to play pro ball.

Shoup didn’t have a lot to offer, but he always seemed to find a way to recruit the talent. One player from the inner city, linebacker Louis Dubose, once was asked how he wound up at Cal Lutheran.

“Well,” he replied, “I was at this awards thing when a little white man came up behind me and said, ‘Son, how would you like to be on TV?’ ”

So the TV turned out to be a small, local cable channel. What the heck. Dubose came anyway.

As the legend of the Kingsmen grew, so did the power of Shoup, who also was influential in getting the Cowboys to make CLU their summer training site beginning in 1963. That brought in more dollars, more campus improvements and more notoriety to the little school.

But some complained that Shoup was using his power only for his own program. One basketball coach left in disgust, claiming that there were never enough funds left after football for his program and others.

Some claimed that Shoup, with the alumni in his pocket, was more powerful than the college president.

But few could dispute that he had put the school on the map.

Short and slight of build, Shoup looks more like a minister than a football coach, but he can be both.

Deeply religious, he can get on his knees and pray in front of the team, then send it out fired up to kill--figuratively speaking, of course--for the greater glory of the purple and gold.

Sometimes too fired up.

In the championship game against Texas Lutheran in 1975, CLC, unbeaten to that point, was blown out, 34-8.

Late in the game, the cause obviously lost, quarterback Bill Wilson was calling a play in the huddle when he was interrupted by running back Hank Bauer.

“Look,” Bauer said, “we know we can’t win. Forget this. Why don’t we just pick one guy on the other team and kill him.”

Just kidding.

Yet, the Kingsmen were so good for so long, defeat became almost unthinkable.

At this point in his life, at age 57, Bob Shoup figured to be in the twilight of his glory.

Instead, he finds himself in the twilight zone.

But on a recent afternoon, he seemed at peace with his circumstances. He sat in his office, surrounded by trophies and other accolades, and talked about both the glory days of the distant past and the gory days of the recent past.

“I was, I guess, the spearhead of the feeling that we ought to look at more options than just the SCIAC,” he said. “I really felt we ought to look at the possibility of being an NAIA independent. That’s where all of our success really came.

“I felt there were some other conferences we might take a look at. If we were giving scholarships just up to tuition, and if we were competing against schools that just gave scholarships only to tuition, we could be competitive. I felt it was premature for us to move.”

But his protests fell on deaf ears.

“I was overruled. There were those who felt the changes could be handled and Cal Lutheran could make another transition. And, hey, I don’t like to lose. But it hasn’t destroyed me.”

Would it have been better, in retrospect, not to have moved up to the WFC after so many successful years in the NAIA?

“I think it was a good thing for the institution,” he said. “I think it gave us credibility with the media that the NAIA never had in California. California is an NCAA state.

“I would have preferred to have been successful. You coach with the idea of winning. But I think also you try to be competitive. I think it was good for Cal Lutheran to be able to play against some really good programs.

“There were certainly those that felt, because of our reputation, we could be a contending Cinderella story in the Western Football Conference. That was never realistic.”

With his record and place in school history secure, and with a new course set that he doesn’t really want to follow, why not just call it a career? Wasn’t there a temptation not to come back?

“I’d say it was more than a temptation,” he said. “It was a strong feeling. This is going to be an ugly period. It’s going to be difficult. It’s not going to be fun. Some of my best friends have wondered, why do I continue?

“My wife, Helen, and I took time and talked about it and decided it was better all around if I coached in 1989, better for the players, better for the program. The program could not suffer another major change at this time. I don’t want the players to feel the apple cart has been upset here at Cal Lutheran and let’s transfer.

“I’m really excited about 1989. I have tremendous respect for the players and coaches that stayed in the midst of all the controversy. It was easy to pack your bags and leave. To say, ‘It isn’t the Cal Lutheran I knew.’

“I feel very good about this season and I want to be a part of that. But I recognize that to play what is really a Division II schedule under Division III rules is maybe as big a challenge as we had in starting the program in 1962.”

Perhaps no one knows better what Shoup is going through in this period of transition than his wife.

“Any time you end a career, it really hurts,” said Helen, who saw all three of the couple’s children go through CLU and now works in the business office at the school. “He saw this program as if it were a child developing and he wants to leave it strong. We love this place. My goodness, we have had so many blessings here. We never dreamed all this would have happened to us.

“He loves this sport, but where he feels God leads, he’ll go. If this should be the end, we have so much to be thankful for. It’ll be bittersweet. It’ll be an adjustment and I’m sure we’ll miss it. But I know we’ll be able to handle it.

“I just always see Bob coaching. Being associated with a team is the most wonderful, exciting thing in the world. I wish everybody could have the experience. But I think Bob can be on the sidelines and cheer on the next coach.”

But just when that will be remains unclear.

School officials, negotiating Shoup’s future behind the scenes, have nothing but good things to say about him. At least publicly.

“Over the 28 years of association with Coach Shoup,” said Dennis Gillette, vice president of institutional advancement at the school, “we have seen him as an inspiration to thousands of young people. He has given positive recognition to this institution and to his sport.

“Deeply religious, he has been an excellent role model for the young people who have had the opportunity to be with him. He is in the mold of a winner but brings an ethical sense to his sport and the university.”

The night before he talked to a reporter, Shoup had watched a TV program on Landry, showing him in retirement relaxing in a back-yard pool with his grandchildren.

“I could relate to that,” Shoup said. “He appeared to have made a good, positive adjustment. He’s a born-again Christian. He said, ‘doors close and doors open.’

“I’ve been blessed with a great family, a tremendous coaching career at Cal Lutheran and marvelous friends. I count those as tremendous blessings.

“I don’t look forward to any emptiness. My life has been so full and I think it will continue to be full.”