Hlas: Bob Elliott was both mentor and friend to players

Bob Elliott could play wingman as well as he could coach football, which is saying something.

Matt Bowen was an Iowa recruit from Glen Ellyn, Ill., who went on to play defensive back for seven seasons in the NFL. He now works as a writer and broadcaster for ESPN, and is an assistant football coach at IC Catholic Prep in Elmhurst, Ill. Elliott was on Hayden Fry's staff at Iowa in 1995 when Bowen was a senior at Glenbard West High in Glen Ellyn.

'Coach E came to the school and said 'Matt, if you ever need help getting a date for a school dance, I'm here for you.' I was an 18-year-old kid, and I said 'Sure, sure.'

'But come time for the senior prom I called Coach E to take him up on that offer. I said 'I need you to come to school to ask this girl to prom for me.'

'He showed up at the school with flowers. He was wearing an Iowa sport coat, had on a black-and-gold tie, had his Rose Bowl ring on. I had already committed to Iowa by that time.

'Coach E pulls me out of class. We walk downstairs, and he walks right into the class where this girl was. He says 'I need to see Nicole.' The teacher sees his Rose Bowl ring, sees he's legit, says 'OK, sure.' Nicole, she doesn't know the guy, but he said 'I'm here on behalf of Matt Bowen, asking you to prom.' She says yes.'

These are the kinds of stories you get from people who best knew Elliott, who died of cancer at age 64 last Saturday. He was a college football coach for 38 years, 12 at Iowa and six at Iowa State. He joined Nebraska's football staff earlier this year because one of his former Hawkeye players, Nebraska defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, wanted his help.

Jack Whitver is a business-owner, attorney and Iowa state senator who played wide receiver on the 2000 and 2001 Iowa State teams that went to bowls while Elliott was on Dan McCarney's staff.

'Anyone who played for Coach Elliott knew how much he cared about his players, both on the field and off,' Whitver said. 'He didn't care if you were a five-star player or a walk-on, he treated you with respect.

'His skill and attitude as a coach is only matched by his character off the field — tough, loyal, determined, caring, intelligent, and a winner.

'He will be missed but his legacy will carry on through the thousands of people he touched in his life.'

Anthony Herron was an Iowa defensive lineman from 1997 to 2000, then played in the NFL. When he was in high school in Bolingbrook, Ill., his primary Iowa recruiter was Hawkeyes assistant coach Bret Bielema. Herron was sold on head coach Hayden Fry, but something Bielema told him was the difference-maker.

'Other schools were telling me not to go to Iowa,' said Herron, a football analyst for the Pac-12 Network. 'They said Hayden Fry wouldn't be there all four years, he was getting older and would retire.

'But Bret's answer was 'We've got the next guy in line here.' When I took a visit and met Coach E, I was sold.

'Bobby Elliott was so magnificent as a person. If he wasn't that, I'd have probably gone to Michigan or Michigan State or some other school. But I thought 'If that's the guy who's next, I'm going there.'

'He had a way about him that was really similar to Hayden in that he could engage you at a human level. A lot of big-time football coaches seem a little above the fray, a little more removed from things.'

Jay Bickford was a junior offensive lineman at Iowa in 1998, the last year Fry and Elliott coached there.

'There are very few dates that I remember annually like my children's birthdays,' said Bickford, an associate professor of social studies/history education at Eastern Illinois University. '9/12/1998 is one of them because it felt like the world stopped turning. This sounds like hyperbole 20 years later, but it's how I felt at the time when we lost to Iowa State at Kinnick. It was beyond devastating. There is not an adjective that fits.

'Afterward, the locker room was like a morgue. It's hard to remember lots of specifics, but I will always remember how Coach Elliott responded. It's something I've thought about a thousand times since because I have used it in distinctly different situations. …

'After that game, he stood in front of the team and said something to the effect of, 'This is devastating, and if you don't know how to react, then follow me. If you don't know how to respond, watch me. I'll show you. Come tomorrow, I'm going to be angry but excited to prepare. I'm going to have the best week of preparation so we can have the best week of execution. If you don't know what to do, watch me. I won't let it define our season. Join me. I'll show you!' …

'He didn't usurp Coach Fry, because no one questioned that it was Fry's team. But, in my mind's eye, the offensive guys listened as intently as the defensive guys because we had so much respect for E. And, that's leadership. It's not just words, but action that compels a positive, direct response from the rest.'

'He didn't just speak. In that moment, he told us what he would do and he spent the rest of the season doing it. That was E, a guy who wasn't afraid to step up and whose passion made everyone want to follow.'

What Bickford and his teammates didn't know during that 1998 season is Elliott had been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. It's why he didn't coach in 1999, and why he couldn't become a candidate to replace Fry when Fry retired after the 1998 season.

'I was still a teenager at the time,' said Herron. 'I was seeing him in the hospital (in 1999), battling for his life, seeing how he came through it. That's something that has constantly been part of me as I continue to seek success and strive for different things.'

Eric Oliver of Cedar Rapids was a middle school teacher who coached high school and middle school sports for many years. He offered this story about Elliott:

'I approached him at a football clinic in Iowa City back in the '80s. I told him I was a middle school football coach in Cedar Rapids but I hoped to be a defensive secondary coach at the high school level some day.

'The next thing I know he invites me to his office and gives me a binder with his personal collection of D-back drills. He trusted me to take them to copy. I returned with the notebook the next day and he invites me to the defensive secondary pre-practice meeting and allows me to shadow him at a practice.

'A few days later a VHS tape arrives at Roosevelt unsolicited with tackling and defensive secondary drills. When I called to thank him he said the most important lesson in coaching, which he attributed to Hayden and his dad (former Michigan football coach and Iowa athletic director Bump Elliott) is to never forget that we are not in the football business. We are in the people business.

'They do not make them like this anymore."

Bowen said 'I use a lot of things Coach E taught me that have nothing to do with techniques or playbooks. There's so much more to football than coaching. He developed people for life. He allowed people to believe in themselves and believe they could be great, and strive to be great.

'Five or six years ago I was covering the Bears' minicamp at Halas Hall and Coach E was a guest there. I didn't watch a single minute of practice. I spent two hours straight talking with him. He didn't mention one thing about being sick. He wanted to know about me and my family, about my writing career.

'I'm 40 now. No one knows how many wins and losses I had. It's the people you meet and the values you learn that matters, in my opinion. People like Coach E reassure you there are great people willing to sacrifice for the betterment of others.

'We'll have practice tomorrow night and I'll tell my players about Bobby Elliott, an example of greatness and toughness. For a long time, he suffered through pain. But he kept coaching, kept pushing young men.'

The Elliott family has asked people to consider donating blood at RedCrossBlood.org or registering to donate organs and tissue at BeTheMatch.org or DonateLife.net.

A service celebrating Elliott's life will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at the University of Iowa's Hancher Auditorium. That's a big room. A big room will be needed.