NORMAN — Throughout his 50-plus-year career in the sports business, there wasn’t a day that went by that Bill Hancock didn’t think back to a valuable lesson he learned while working as assistant sports information director as a student at OU.
It was instilled in him to be early for everything by former Sooners men’s basketball coach John MacLeod, who would tell his team the bus was leaving at 9 a.m., which meant 8:55 a.m. He even learned how to manage finances from former OU business manager Ken Farris.
As a college student, Hancock spent most of his time inside the OU Field House, which housed the athletic department’s communications offices in those days.
On Feb. 1, Hancock, 74, retired from his post as executive director of the College Football Playoff, a role he served in since the playoff’s inception. In addition to representing the CFP, Hancock was also the first full-time director of the NCAA Men’s Final Four and the Bowl Championship Series.
When he first stepped on campus at OU, Hancock wanted to become a journalist. However, after serving as editor of the OU Daily student newspaper in the summer of 1971, Hancock found himself in the Field House that fall.
In his early 20s as a student, Hancock worked daily alongside MacLeod, baseball coach Enos Semore and offensive coordinator Barry Switzer and defensive line coach Jimmy Johnson. He was intimidated by head football coach Chuck Fairbanks.
Hancock’s first season as a SID was OU’s historic 1971 season, which featured the Game of the Century against Nebraska.
Hancock has been a diehard Sooners fan since growing up in Hobart and was in attendance when Notre Dame ended OU’s 47-game win streak in 1957.
He’s also a staunch supporter of Oklahoma State. His son Will Hancock, who was a sports information director at OSU, was killed in 2001 along with nine others when a plane crashed carrying OSU basketball officials, staff and players returning from a game at Colorado.
Hancock is a massive fan of Oklahoma State soccer. His daughter-in-law, Karen Hancock, spent over two decades as the Cowgirls’ coach before moving into a full-time role as senior associate athletic director just over a year ago.
Bill, his wife Nicki and their friends own a suite at Neal Patterson Stadium where the Cowgirls play and attend most home games.
Hancock’s Sooner roots are continuing as his grandson, Jack Hancock, is a freshman in OU’s Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Now that he’s retired, he hopes to return to his home state more often to visit his family and take in Sooners football games.
Following his final days as CFP director, The Oklahoman spoke to Hancock about retirement, his OU days and his legendary career.
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What did it feel like on your last day as CFP director?
“I loved my job. I loved it. And yet, I’m fully at ease and looking forward to the next step. Early on, there may have been some apprehension, but as I got closer to the time to retire I kept thinking, ‘Wow, I’m going to have all this time to do things I haven’t had time to do.’ And so, more than anything, I’m excited about the next step. I’m excited about the future, pleased with the past.”
How did you feel the first season of the expanded 12-team playoff went?
“I was pleased. I watched every minute of every game and attended the Cotton Bowl and the championship game. … I could not have been more pleased, starting with the first game, that first Friday night, the atmosphere in South Bend on television was remarkable. As we envisioned what it would be like, this was our best vision — for us to have great, electric atmospheres in the first round and then moving ahead to quarterfinals, semifinals and the championship game. It was just awesome. Nothing, obviously, like that had ever happened in college football before and we got off to a really great first year.”
What are some of your favorite memories from the 1971 OU football season?
“We knew we had a good team. We knew we had a really good team, one of the best offenses in the history of the game to that point when we got started. The game that really woke everybody up to our potential was when we beat USC at home because they were really good and we handled them pretty easily. And then to have all the national media come to Norman for that Nebraska-OU game, we somehow crammed them into the old press box. We had news conferences every day that week. Our players were great. Coach Fairbanks was great. They gave their time. It was an exciting week on campus during Nebraska week.”
Do you get back to Oklahoma much?
“I get back two or three times a year. Throughout my career, you weren’t supposed to show any partiality. When I worked at the Big Eight office, when I worked at the NCAA, really all my career, BCS and CFP, you were not supposed to show any partiality. And I really tried hard to not let people know where I went to school because you could never be viewed as being partial. No school was different from any other school (for me), whether it was producing the basketball tournament bracket or running the Big Eight track and field championship. I was always proud of that. A lot of people never knew where I went to school.“I suspect I will be able to be more of a Sooner now that I’ve retired, go to more games and spend more time on campus. … You can be both a Sooner and a Cowboy.”
What was your relationship with college football growing up in Hobart?
“I was obsessed with it. Literally. Somewhere there’s a photo of me in my first game, which I think was in 1953 or (1954), with a little sport coat and a little red tie, standing, standing in the stands on the west side about Section 6. During my really formative years, our team never lost. Between when I was 3 and 7, I was obsessed. When you’re a little kid and your team never loses, that’s pretty cool. And then, of course, I did go to that Notre Dame game, and I wondered why all the people were crying. I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, this is bad. All these people are crying after the game.’“I was obsessed. I wore red, when Prentice Gaut was playing, he was No. 38 and I wrote No. 38 on my school notebooks. And then getting to cover the team for the Daily, I was the Daily’s sports editor when Steve Owens won the Heisman. So that was a thrill for this obsessed kid from Hobart to be able to cover the Heisman announcement. To cover a Heisman season was a great thrill.”
What do you look back on as the most significant sports moments throughout your career?
“I remember the night the basketballs got locked in the sports room at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. It was pretty close to game time, and there was only one key, and the guy that had the key was stuck in traffic, and we were trying to figure out how to break into this room, which was an umpires room inside the stadium. Of course, it was a baseball stadium, and we were getting ready to get a sledgehammer and break the door, and he showed up at the last minute. “I remember that 1988 Final Four and the championship game and with KU and Oklahoma and the Georgia game and the Rose Bowl. It’s funny how you remember the painful losses. Those are probably two of the most painful losses in OU history. And then throw in that Notre Dame game in 1957 and I happened to be there for all three of them.“Then the funny things that happened, oh my goodness, the night that Billy Tubbs grabbed the microphone. I was sitting at the official table and it was hilarious. That plays in slow motion in my brain when I think about Billy being Billy walking up toward the table. He grabbed the microphone and I remember thinking, ‘Nothing good is going to happen.’ … But I’ve always believed in Sooner Magic and I know it exists.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Bill Hancock ‘excited’ to retire as College Football Playoff director
