RIP Terry Hoeppner
by Memphis Bengal on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 11:00am
Indiana football coach Terry Hoeppner has tragically lost his battle with a brain tumor and has died at the age of 59.
Hoeppner becomes the second Big Ten coach to die in the last two years following the passing of Northwestern coach Randy Walker of a heart attack.
Hoeppner had only coached at Indiana for two years and managed to win five games last year, no mean feat for a program that has been perpetually rebuilding. He had some dominant teams in the Mid-American Conference with Miami (Ohio), where he recruited and coached Ben Roethlisberger.
Recently it appeared that Indiana had started to recruit well relative to the rest of the second division of the Big Ten, even with the specter of Hoeppner’s illness, and a bowl appearance in the next year or two may not have been unreasonable. A few days ago Hoeppner had asked for a leave of absence for this season. Bill Lynch will be Indiana’s interim coach for 2007.