Bill Mallory’s office at his Bloomington home is overflowing with memories.
The walls and shelves are covered with a collection of photographs, awards and trophies, each telling another story from the former IU football coach’s head coaching career that spanned from 1969 to 1996. Along with IU, his career also featured stops at Miami (OH), Colorado and Northern Illinois.
After Mallory and his wife, Ellie, had recently moved into their current home, all his memories couldn’t quite fit into his newest office. Now, the photographs and awards sprawl throughout the home, through the hallways and onto the walls of the basement.
“His office at our previous home was twice the size it is now,” Ellie said. “There’s stuff all over the house, but when you’re a coach as long as he was, you have a lot of memories.”
However, the most telling pieces of memorabilia in his office aren’t even trophies. Sitting on top of his desk, still nearly untouched, are scraps of yellow legal paper and a number of Post-It notes, each one full of names of former players and coaches he planned on contacting in the near future.
Next to some of the names are check marks, indicating the ones he'd gotten around to.
But some of those names still don’t have checks next to them, and never will. Mallory died at the age of 82 on May 25 due to brain surgery stemming from a fall he suffered a few days before.
Those remaining conversations will be left dangling forever.
What makes those conversations important is that they were more than just a former coach contacting a former player. As Ellie says, they always meant much more than that for her husband.
“I call them former players, but they’re more than that,” Ellie said. “They’re friends now.”
More than a coach. Whether it be as a friend or a father figure, that would always be a recurring theme no matter where Mallory was during a storied career that saw him win 168 total games, win four bowl games, become the first back-to-back Big Ten Coach of the Year in 1986 and 1987 and become IU’s all-time winningest head coach with 69 career wins, a record he still owns today.
But it was always about more than wins or losses for the man that was seen as more than a coach, and he let that show during his life.
“When I look at his win and loss record, I think that doesn’t tell you anything,” Ellie said. “Those are just numbers that don’t mean anything. What’s meaningful is the association he had with the people and the university.”
***
It’s 1975 in Houston. Mallory is the head coach at Colorado and has coached his team to an appearance in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. As Mallory and his team arrive at the hotel they’ll be staying at, they run into some trouble.
Ellie remembers it as “a fancy hotel with beautiful artwork.” As the team enters, the hotel’s manager asks Mallory to have his players wait outside because they hadn’t prepared everything yet, saying the last team they had hosted the year before destroyed their rooms. Now, the manager was expecting nothing less from Mallory’s players.
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Mallory said. “If it becomes a problem, they’re walking home.”
Ellie chuckles thinking about it, still remembering the players’ eyes widening up after hearing such a statement.
“That’s just how it was,” Ellie said. “You behaved yourself.”
Mallory always prided himself on running a classy program and learning opportunities for his players were plentiful in the process. Whether it was about being a gentleman and holding the door open, looking somebody in the eye during an interview or even the difference between a salad and dessert fork at the dinner table, he always made sure his players were ready for life beyond the football field.
“It was very important to him to represent whatever university he was at in a class fashion,” Ellie said. “He would always make sure his players knew that’s what he expected from them.”
***
The Mallory's are on vacation in Tok, Alaska, a place Ellie calls “the end of the earth.”
As Bill and Ellie retrieve their bags, they notice some luggage with the name of a former player on it. They decide that once they go eat with their friends, they’ll go try and seek him out.
They eventually find him having dinner at a restaurant with his wife and his in-laws, a cocktail in front of him on the table.
As Mallory approaches him and says hello, the former player, now around 30 years old, is taken off-guard and frantically moves the cocktail in front of his wife, trying to deceive his former coach.
“I think you’re old enough now to have a cocktail,” Mallory said.
Years after wearing a uniform for Mallory, the player was still trying to live up to his former coach’s expectations, still trying to exude the class he had been taught before.
It’s something Ellie says she’s grown accustomed to over the years as Bill tried to remain in contact with his players.
“The young men had great respect for him,” Ellie said. “He cared deeply about his players.”
***
It's Nov. 14, 1987, and Mallory and the Hoosiers are playing Michigan State to determine the Big Ten Championship. IU, ranked 16th at the time, had beaten the likes of No. 9 Ohio State and No. 20 Michigan that season and looked destined for a Rose Bowl appearance.
However, it wasn’t meant to be as the Spartans prevailed, winning 27-3. It would be one of the toughest losses of Mallory’s career.
“What was important about that loss was how disappointing it was for not only him, but the whole team,” Ellie said. “It was a huge disappointment.”
With the weight of the loss still on his shoulders, Mallory approached Michigan State Coach George Perles and asked if he could say a few words to the Spartans in their locker room.
In what would turn out to be one of his most famous moments at IU, Mallory commended the Michigan State players on a great effort and gave a rousing rallying speech.
As he finished talking, he left them with one final thought.
“I’m just going to say this,” Mallory said. “By God, go out to the coast and kick their asses because we’re all damn tired…”
Mallory’s voice faded off as the Michigan State players erupted into cheers before he could even finish, even spurring a spirited fist pump out of him as he walked out of the locker room.
“That not only was good sportsmanship, but it took a lot of courage to do that,” Ellie said. “You’re so disappointed for your team because they had played hard. I think that showed who he was.”
Michigan State would go on to defeat the University of Southern California in the Rose Bowl. Maybe, just maybe, Mallory’s speech lit the fire inside them the Spartans needed.
***
Nine days before Mallory died, he and Ellie went to the annual Indiana State football golf outing. His son, Curt, is the head football coach of the Sycamores.
In front of what was the largest turnout in the history of the event, Curt gave a short speech. Something he said in the middle of it made Bill and Ellie both turn and smile at each other.
“I think I’ve heard that somewhere before,” she said to him.
She said she sees so much of her husband in each of their sons, who are now coaches themselves. While Curt is at Indiana State, Mike Mallory is the assistant special teams coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Doug Mallory is the defensive backs coach for the Atlanta Falcons.
Each of them continue to carry on their father’s legacy.
“The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” Ellie said. “They have the same motivation of caring for their players.”
When asked how important Bill’s family was to him, which now consists of four children, 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, Ellie doesn’t have to say a word.
She just holds up one finger. They were always his number one priority.
“There’s absolutely no question there,” Ellie said. “He loved his children and they are all very successful.”
***
As Ellie sits behind the desk of her husband’s office, she uses different words to describe him. Quality, classy, gentleman, loyal and honorable are a few that come to mind for her immediately.
Even though Mallory knew a multitude of different people during his life, affecting or altering the lives of most of them, she probably knows him better than any of them.
However, there’s still one question that makes her sit and ponder for a second.
That question is what would he say to the influx of thoughts, prayers and shared memories from the players, coaches and employees he affected so positively along the way.
“I know he would say thank you,” Ellie said. “Then, he would probably say he didn’t do it alone. He had really fine assistant coaches. He always included everybody.”
His office chair behind his desk will now sit vacant, while the walls full of memories will remain there, watching over an empty desk that’s missing the man who created all those moments.
But it’s still those names, scribbled down on those pieces of paper, that will remain his lasting legacy.
It wasn’t the trophies or the awards he did it for. It was always about the people.
“The people were what was important to him,” Ellie said. “He was more than a coach to his players. So many have said that he was the father that they never had and I believe them.”
