All Sooners

Report Card: Joe C. Gets an 'A'

Watch Stadium's Brett McMurphy and Jeff Goodman assess each Big 12 athletic director and recount how Castiglione landed Bob Stoops, Lincoln Riley and Lon Kruger
John E. Hoover|
Report Card: Joe C. Gets an 'A'
Report Card: Joe C. Gets an 'A'

Interesting read over at WatchStadium.com today.

College football reporter Brett McMurphy and college basketball reporter Jeff Goodman take an extensive look at how athletic directors around FBS are performing, and Tuesday’s edition centers on the Big 12 Conference and the hiring of Oklahoma’s Joe Castiglione — and how Joe C. landed Bob Stoops, Lincoln Riley and Lon Kruger.

“Bob was incredibly well-prepared and (led with) his confidence, which sometimes people thought it was arrogance opposed to confidence, but he had confidence,” Castiglione said. “He had a way of enduring confidence in everyone around him, sort of like imploring his team to have the same will to succeed that he did.

“It worked magically, beautifully.”

On Riley’s promotion after Stoops’ sudden retirement in 2017, Castiglione described how he and Stoops felt about Riley two years earlier.

“Bob and I thought, ‘Hey, when you decide to retire sometime down the road, Coach Riley will be the guy, right?’” Castiglione said. “But we thought he would be a head coach for several years and then we would work to get (Riley) back (to OU). We had the right guy here and it made the smoothest transition. It was as seamless as can be.”

McMurphy and Goodman assess each Big 12 AD’s major hires and hand out report cards. Castiglione gets an A.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY AND RANKINGS HERE

To get the latest OU posts as they happen, join the SI Sooners Community by clicking “Follow” at the top right corner of the page (mobile users can click the notifications bell icon), and follow SI Sooners on Twitter @All_Sooners. 

Published
John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

Share on XFollow johnehoover