the day i repo-ed the OSU football coach's car

With the college football bowl season winding down, I'm reminded of some fond memories of my newspaper days in Columbus. I worked for at the Columbus Dispatch for about five years, supervising the classified advertising key accounts staff. Working with the car dealers was one of my main responsibilities. Part of those responsibilities included entertaining our clients and just basically schmoozing them from time to time. This allowed me to develop some great friendships with many of the Columbus dealers. One of my favorite friendships was with a guy named Phil. He was the general sales manager at one of the Buick dealerships.

In January of 2001, Phil and I were due to have lunch together and talk business. A day or so prior to our meeting, Phil called me to ask if I'd be interested in riding to OSU head football coach John Cooper's house to get his car. Coop had just been fired by Ohio State and part of his "package" included the use of a sweet Buick Riviera. It was Phil's responsibility to retrieve the car for the company.

Of course, I agreed to go with Phil. Heck, it meant a trip to John Cooper's house and the opportunity to drive his car. So Phil picked me up and we drove over to Coop's house.

I'd always heard that Cooper's house was ridiculously huge. When we arrived on his cul-de-sac, we saw the Buick in the driveway. The house was large and nice but not as big as I expected. We rang the door bell (no the OSU fight song did not chime). Nothing. Where's coach?

Phil said, "He knew I was coming, I wonder where he is."

After a few minutes, Coach Cooper emerged from the side of the house wearing a denim shirt and unlaced snow boots that he had obviously just slipped on. He said, "Hey guys, this is not my house...but it is my daughter Cindy's house. My house is over there."

He pointed next door and...DANG! His house was ginormous. It lived up the hype. He continued, "This is the car, though. I parked it in Cindy's driveway. It's all ready to go."

He handed the keys to Phil and then Phil tossed the keys to me. Sweet! I get to drive Coop's car!

Coop was not in much of a chatty mood. After all, he'd just gotten fired and, well, we were taking his car. So we said goodbye and we got in the cars.

Phil backed out on to the cul-de-sac to wait for me. I began backing out. What I've failed to mention to this point is that it had recently snowed in Columbus. About an inch--enough to cover the ground...and the driveway.

As I was backing out, I looked to my left and saw a big tree. I thought to myself, I don't recall that tree being on that side of the driveway. As I paused to recalibrate, I realized that I had just driven through John Cooper's front yard. See, the driveway was curved...and I missed the curve on the back-out.

I pulled forward, and after some fancy maneuvering, backed the car out on to the street.

I can just picture Coach Cooper watching all this from his big picture window, and cussing me out.

I expect to read about myself in his memoirs someday. It may look something like this: "I knew it was all over when, not only did they come take my Riv, but the dude turfed my front yard."

In case you're curious, yes, I did check in the glove box. Nothing too interesting...a couple documents from the OSU athletic department but not much else. The way they got hammered by South Carolina in the Outback bowl a few days prior, I half expected to see the OSU game plan in the glove box...with Cooper thinking, Where did I put that darn thing?

And that's my story of the day I repo-ed John Cooper's Buick.