As a 23-year-old sitting in an office interviewing for his first full-time job, Derrick Jackson wasn't sure the coaching profession would be a viable long-term profession for him.
The good news for Jackson and the career that has now spanned nearly two decades was the man on the other side of that desk was Bob Spoo.
"I've been touched by several good coaches," said Jackson, now Purdue's cornerbacks coach, "but (Spoo) had me at the earliest stage of my career where if it wouldn't have been for his encouragement and guidance, who knows if I'd still be coaching today."
Spoo, a Purdue quarterback from 1956-58 and assistant coach from 1978-86, died the morning of Oct. 15 at the age of 80.
"It's a loss because people like him affect the world in a way that nobody will really know because he was so soft-spoken," Jackson said. "He's touched thousands of coaches' lives when you look at his legacy and many thousands of student-athletes' lives."
In his 24 seasons as head coach at Eastern Illinois, Spoo had several future collegiate head coaches on his staff and coached quarterbacks eventual NFL quarterbacks Tony Romo and Jimmy Garoppolo.
While at Purdue as an assistant coach, Spoo guided one of the better quarterback lineages in Boilermaker history with Mark Herrmann, Scott Campbell and Jim Everett all putting up big numbers during that eight-year period.
Before his 2003 interview in Spoo's office in O'Brien Stadium in Charleston, Ill., Jackson was coming off NFL coaching internships with the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers but still needed the confidence boost that came from being told he was capable of being a full-time coach at the collegiate level. The effect Spoo had on Jackson's career was the first thing the Purdue assistant mentioned to his wife, Renae, when he informed her of Spoo's death.
"You remember the people who affected your life and it moves you to tears when you hear news that he has passed away. That's how I felt about the man. It's amazing how much of an effect he had on my life being here at Purdue today," Jackson said. "It started with him making this a profession that made sense for me to touch others' lives the way he touched my life."
Spoo's leadership and counseling continued after Jackson's two-year run at EIU ended with Jackson's boss telling him to take an opportunity at a Division I-A school to better his résumé.
"I remember thinking about how to tell him that I was considering this offer from Northern Illinois and as good of a person and coach Joe Novak was, I felt like I was letting Bob Spoo down," Jackson said. "He told me that I'd be crazy to turn that opportunity down and that Joe Novak was a great coach and great person to work with. He pushed me in further to take it."
Spoo built a record of 144-131-1 in his head coaching tenure at EIU with nine Division I-AA playoff appearances and was named Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year three times (2001, 2005 and 2009). For his first coaching staff at EIU in 1987, Spoo hired Dino Babers as his running backs coach. Babers, who is in his third year as head coach at Syracuse, would eventually return to succeed Spoo as head coach in 2012.
"Bob Spoo was an amazing man who gave me my first full-time job," Babers said Monday in his weekly media conference. "I remember being single at the time he hired me in 1987 and going over for dinner at the time with Bob, (wife) Suzie and (daughter) Katie. He needs to be and should be a Hall of Fame coach at that level."
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