Hoeppner dies at age 59

IU head football coach Terry Hoeppner passed away early Tuesday morning due to complications from a brain tumor, team physician Dr. Larry Rink said. \nHe was 59.\n“Coach died due to complications from the brain tumor for which he had been treated surgically and therapeutically over the past 18 months, “ Rink said in a statement. “His family was at his side.”\nHoeppner had been on an extended medical leave of absence extending through the 2007 season, and had been receiving chemotherapy and radiation. The IU Athletics Department held a press conference reinforcing their full confidence in Coach Hoeppner and named assistant head coach Bill Lynch head coach for the 2007 season in Hoeppner’s stead Friday, June 15.\nGreenspan said he had been in contact with Hoeppner over the last several weeks, and he said, as Hoeppner was fond of saying, that he didn’t lose, he just ran out of timeouts.\n“I’ve seen him several times in the last few days,” Greenspan said, “and had a chance to say a few things to him on Father’s Day on Sunday, and that was good for me. He’s certainly struggled with his health here. ... I think from the medical folks (standpoint) he was doing much better than he had done in several weeks, and obviously he took a rapid turn and he (just) ran out of timeouts.”\nGreenspan said he believes Hoeppner will be remembered as much for his optimistic, “never lose” mentality as he will for what he accomplished professionally.\n“I think those that measure the quality of a man perhaps on a national championship and a Big Ten (championship) might see it in a lesser way, but the people that I think he has touched ... I think Terry’s spirit will live much longer than the games that he coached and perhaps people he touched today,” Greenspan said. “He’ll touch them for a long time.”\nLynch said Hoeppner’s passing marked a sad day for IU football.\n“A great loss, and one heck of a guy. We all lost a great friend, as well as what he’s brought to Indiana football and really, I think, the entire state,” Lynch said.\nLynch said Jane Hoeppner, Terry Hoeppner’s wife, spoke to the team last Friday morning. He said her message “had great impact on them” and that he believed they were prepared for something like this.\n“I think, over the course of the last two or three weeks, we were up front with them and kind of let them know what the situation was,” Lynch said. “It’s always a shock, and the reality sets in when you hear it. But, we’re hopeful that we prepared them in some way for it, as we went through the last two weeks.”\nSenior cornerback Tracy Porter said the team took Hoeppner’s death like they would the loss of a family member. He said that was how much Hoeppner meant to his players.\n“You can pretty much imagine what the scene was like,” Porter said. “It’s just like the death of a family member, Coach Hep was our father figure, being our head coach.”\nSophomore linebacker Will Patterson said the team started to notice Hoeppner’s condition changing during the winter. However, he said Hoeppner was still enthusiastic and excited through his illness.\n“We started to kind of notice that he was going through it during winter workouts,” Patterson said. “He would try to be there; we would just notice that he started to do some funny things ... It just wasn’t Coach Hep. But, at the same time, (Hoeppner) was still positive, still enthusiastic about what we were doing, and that’s all that really mattered to us.”\nSenior fullback Josiah Sears said he did not think anyone realized just how bad Hoeppner’s condition was.\n“No one knew,” Sears said. “I don’t even think the coaches knew, maybe until this weekend, how serious it actually was.”\nSears expressed confidence in Lynch’s ability to lead the team through this tragedy and help them realize the goals Hoeppner set for the program while he was at the helm.\n“Obviously, it’s going to be tough, because we just lost our head coach,” Sears said. “But, we have a great leader in Coach Lynch that’s going to give us continuity, because he’s been leading us since Coach Hep has been absent for spring ball. We’re 100 percent behind Coach Lynch, because he’s 100 percent behind the leadership of Coach Hoeppner, and he’s going to lead us in the direction that Coach Hep had for this program.”\nHoeppner, IU’s 26th head football coach, brought the team to the brink of respectability and energized a campus rarely known to care about anything that didn’t take place at Assembly Hall or Bill Armstrong Stadium. The mantra “Coach Hep Wants You” rallied thousands of Hoosiers to Memorial Stadium on Saturdays, hot, cold or otherwise, between August and November for two years. \nWins over rivals such as Kentucky and traditional Big Ten powers such as Iowa made Hoeppner one of campus’s most iconic and beloved figures. \nThe energy Hoeppner brought to the IU football program was evident in attendance, which increased 39 percent per game, with a 46 percent increase in overall ticket sales and a 110 percent increase in student season ticket sales during his first season in Bloomington, according to www.iuhoosiers.com.\nGreenspan said he believes Hoeppner was a man of great energy and inspiration. \n“I know that there were probably some that couldn’t distinguish his energy and his enthusiasm and his positive outlook for perhaps a ‘Polly Ann-ish’ perspective,” Greenspan said. “I loved it. I thought it was what we needed. I thought it was what we sought several years ago. ... Terry loved his work. ... His commitment to living a life to inspire people didn’t start when he got sick. I think he’s been that man for a long time.”\nPatterson said Hoeppner’s love for the game he coached was what the sophomore from Indianapolis would remember most about his first college football coach.\n“Just his passion for the game of football,” Patterson said. “He’s just a great person, a great guy. I learned a lot from him.”