• 2016 CoSIDA Special Awards general announcement/release
• Special Awards feature story schedule
by George Schroeder, USA Today national football writer
When Bill Hancock was a boy, he planned to become an NFL wide receiver. Or a concert pianist. Or maybe “a newspaperman.”
“Those were my three dreams,” Hancock says “—I’m ‘oh-fer.’”
He laughs, but it’s not because he has achieved far more than a little boy from Hobart, Okla., could ever imagine.
Hancock, who is receiving the 2016 CoSIDA Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award, has reached the pinnacle of his field. He’s the executive director of the College Football Playoff. For many years before that, he managed the NCAA’s
Hancock interviewed (top); with Bart Connor at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College
Anniversary (bottom, left) ; presenting Ohio State's Urban Meyer with the 2015 College
Football National Championship trophy (bottom, right).
Men’s Basketball Final Four. For so many years now, he’s worked with the United States Olympic Committee at the Olympics.
The Jackson Award is presented to an indivual who makes a lasting contribution to intercollegiate athletics, has demonstrated a long and consistent commitment to excellence, and has been a loyal supporter of CoSIDA and its mission.
But Hancock laughs because even as he has become one of the most influential figures in college sports, he remains the same aw-shucks, genuine article he has always been. When he tells people, “I’m the luckiest guy I know,” he means it.
The
Kansas City Star’s Vahe Gregorian recently described Hancock as “folksy, humble, kind and gentle.” While commonly held by those Hancock has crossed paths with, the description would make him blush – probably literally.
“I just think those people don’t know me,” he says, and if he admitted to any of those traits, he would attribute the qualities to his roots in small-town Oklahoma. Or to growing up in a newspaper family (his father ran the
Hobart Democrat-Chief). Or to his years in media relations at the University of Oklahoma and the former Big Eight Conference.
“You learn early on that everybody has a story,” he says. “Every person on the airplane with you is a potential column. Just talk to them and care about them.”
That’s only part of the story, of course. Along with talent – Hancock is an accomplished writer and speaker, and is very good at crafting a message – John D. Montgomery, a lifelong friend and president and publisher of the
Purcell (Okla.) Register, says Hancock has always been interested in others, no matter their position or prestige.
“He treats the janitor at the gymnasium the same as he treats Mike Krzyzewski,” Montgomery says. “He is a magnificent person that will do anything for anybody.”
Hancock sees his time as in sports information as integral in his career arc. It was very similar, he says, to journalism. He learned stories of the student athletes. He asked questions. He was “more of a listener than a talker.”
“I feel like newspapering and ‘SID’-ing are what set me on the right path,” Hancock says.
His course could have been radically altered on Jan. 27, 2001, when Hancock’s 31-year-old son Will, the media relations contact for the Oklahoma State basketball team, was among 10 who died in a plane crash returning from a game at Colorado. He left behind a wife and a 2-month-old daughter and heartbroken family.
Losing their son plunged Bill and his wife Nikki into depths of despair. He called it the “blue moth,” because when he was a child, he misunderstood his grandmother’s references to “blue northers,” those cold fronts that can sweep the Oklahoma plains in winter. He thought she was saying “blue moth.” When Will died, the term seemed fitting for the crushing grief that swept into his heart and would not leave.
“I could not predict when the blue moth might attack, dousing me with a napalm that destroyed all hope,” Hancock wrote in the book “Riding with the Blue Moth.” “I despised the agony that came with those waves of sadness. I hated the savage blue moth.”
The book chronicled his 35-day bicycle journey, physically, emotionally and spiritually, as he rode 2,747 miles from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. He pedaled 80, 90 or maybe 100 miles daily, supported by Nikki, who would drive ahead to find a stopping point, then double back to offer refreshment and encouragement.
As they meandered cross-country, he recorded daily journal entries; in 2005, the entries were published in book form. And while Hancock says the journey never ends – the blue moth still comes around – it was cathartic in helping him deal with it.
“It certainly changed our lives,” he says of losing Will. “Not only not having Will with us, but also the things that we learned as a result of the tragedy, which primarily was to cherish every moment, every single moment.”
One story from among many: Hancock had taken a six-month leave of absence from the NCAA to cycle. He was an anonymous traveler – except in one instance. Stopping at a bait shop near Broken Bow, Okla., a man asked, “What do you do for a living?”
Hancock’s reply: “You’re not gonna believe what I do … I’m the director of the Final Four.”
“You’ve got to be (kidding) me,” the man said – and then he went off, saying the NCAA needed to stop protecting Duke and North Carolina.
“He was all over me,” Hancock says, laughing. “I finally said, ‘Well, I’ve got to go.’”
But Hancock says he enjoyed the conversation, adding he has learned that “every life is equally valuable; every
The Hancock family following the 2015 CFP National Championship Game at AT&T Stadium
in Arlington, Texas.
person is important and interesting and life is to be really treasured.” That sentiment shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows him.
Mike Slive, the recently retired commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, recalls when the FBS conference commissioners decided to hire a Bowl Championship Series spokesman. They needed someone to become a face and a voice, to take a load off their shoulders (for years, the BCS communications duties rotated among the commissioners and conference offices). Slive chaired the search committee.
“We kept hearing, ‘We need to hire someone like Bill Hancock,’” he remembers. “Finally someone said, ‘Why don’t we just hire Bill?’ His reputation at the time was sterling. And when you spend time with Bill, you realize how selfless he is, how genuine he is and how truly kind he is – and that he has a great deal of talent. He was the right person to bring us all together.”
He was also the right guy to put out front as the message grew increasingly unpopular. Hancock took the slings and arrows of the anti-BCS crowd, and he rarely stopped smiling.
“It was clear he had credibility and the respect of the media,” Slive says. “We knew he would be one who could represent us well and thoughtfully, no matter how difficult it was dealing with the media because they didn’t like the BCS. He was able to work through the issues.”
And when the BCS morphed into the College Football Playoff, Slive says Hancock was “a no-brainer” to be the organization’s executive director.
“You can’t spend any time around Bill and Nikki and not realize how special he is,” Slive says.
Which only means somewhere, Hancock is blushing.