From the Easel

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Former Eastern football coach Bob Spoo will be inducted into the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame on June 1 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Nashville.

Spoo concluded a 25-year career as the head coach of the Panthers last season, compiling a total of 144 career victories. Spoo saw nine Football Championship Subdivision playoff wins, five OVC championships, and three OVC Coach of the Year awards.

Organized in 1977, the OVC Hall of Fame honors those coaches, administrators, faculty and staff who have been associated with the OVC for at least five years and provided extensive and outstanding service to the Conference. After this year’s class, the OVC Hall of Fame will have 70 members.

In OVC play, Spoo has 68 victories, which stands as the fourth most in conference history. Eastern has been a member of the OVC since 1996. Since joining the OVC, Spoo has recorded 92 total victories.

In 2000, he was named the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year, and in 2009 he was named a finalist for the Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year award. 

Spoo was also named the Football Gazette I-AA Coach of the Year award in 1995.

Before coaching at Eastern, Spoo worked at a number of high schools, while also coaching at Wisconsin and Purdue.

Under Spoo’s coaching, he has led seven players to be named either OVC Offensive or Defensive Player of the Year, including the Panthers’ quarterback Tony Romo, who won the Walter Payton Award as the FCS’s National Player of the Year in 2002.

In his playing days, Spoo played collegiate football at Purdue University , earning three letters and following NFL Hall of Famer Len Dawson at quarterback in 1957.

Spoo led the Boilermakers to a two-year record of 11-5 and co-captained the 1958 Blue team in the Blue-Gray All-Star Game.

Eastern Athletic Director Barbara Burke said it was a great honor for Spoo to enter the Hall of Fame.

“This is a great and deserving honor for Coach Spoo to be inducted into the OVC Hall of Fame,” said Burke, in a press release. “Coach Spoo was the face of the Panther football program for 25 years and always represented himself and the University with class. I can not think of a more deserving person to receive this honor that is the highest the Ohio Valley Conference office bestows on an individual.”

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].