How late Austin Peay president Sherry Hoppe led return of scholarship football
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
Sherry Hoppe wanted things done the “right way.”
Hoppe, who served as Austin Peay president from 2001-07, died on Jan. 25 at the age of 78. Credited with guiding the school through extreme financial difficulties and turning APSU into the fastest-growing university in Tennessee, Hoppe was instrumental in returning Governors football to scholarship status. But she didn’t allow any corners to be cut in doing so.
“It was strict adherence to the NCAA rules,” said Dave Loos, Austin Peay‘s athletic director from 1997-2013 and men’s basketball coach from 1990-2017. “It was important to her that our athletes understand that they were students first and athletes second. While on this level, a certain amount of success in the win-loss column is important, it’s also important to make sure that we’re teaching these young people some life lessons. That was the atmosphere we were operating under.”
Austin Peay dropped scholarship football after the 1996 season and left the Ohio Valley Conference to become a Division I-AA (now FCS) independent. It later moved to the Pioneer League, where it played from 2001-05.
Hoppe started pushing to bring back scholarship football after tackling APSU’s $4 million federal debt and leading the school’s first-ever capital campaign, which raised $31 million, as well as overseeing a 30% increase in enrollment. While there was already a strong base of support for football from alums, fans and former players, Loos credits Hoppe as the one who “got the ball rolling.”
“It’s a lot harder to actually get done than it is to just talk about,” Loos said. “You don’t just jump out there and say we’re gonna go back to scholarship football. There’s a number of things involved that you have to make sure you have in place or you’re not going to be successful.”
After detailing Austin Peay’s plan to return to scholarship status in December 2005, Hoppe spearheaded four months of fundraising to meet a goal of $750,000 to support not only scholarships, but recruiting. The Govs added 30 scholarships in 2006, playing as an independent, before returning to the OVC with 60 scholarships in 2007.
“There are a number of mid-major schools who play football in our state,” Loos said. “You had UT-Martin, Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, Chattanooga, East Tennessee State. We were all recruiting the same people. In addition to going to scholarship football, we had to have the resources to go out of state and get some players. That took some time, but that’s one of the things she made available to us.”
Rick Christophel, who played quarterback at Austin Peay from 1971-74, remembers some of Hoppe’s fundraising efforts with players from his time. Christophel had remained connected to the program while on staff as an assistant at UAB, and the return to scholarship football was a heavy influence on him coming back to Clarksville to serve as the Govs’ coach from 2007-12.
“She trusted (Loos) and the athletic department,” Christophel said. “She oversaw it, but she kind of let them do what they needed to do. She was always in support of that. She didn’t want to be one of those people that stepped into it and all that stuff like that, but she supported it and and was behind it all the way.”
Hoppe also led key facility upgrades, including a new turf, track and LED videoboard at Governors Stadium (now Fortera Stadium). She also negotiated for the Tennessee Titans to hold their 2006 training camp at Austin Peay, leading to additional upgrades which the Titans paid for.
Christophel thinks Hoppe’s tenure laid a foundation in making the Governors’ job appealing to promising young coaches. Over the last decade, APSU has had three coaches in their early 30s — Will Healy, Scotty Walden and current coach Jeff Faris — with both Healy and Walden eventually taking FBS jobs, and Faris signing an extension through 2030.
“I deeply respected (Hoppe),” said Christophel, who spent time as an assistant coach in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring in 2023. “She was really a good lady. She was fair, and she wanted football to succeed. That was for sure.”
The fruits of Hoppe’s efforts didn’t come into bloom until well after her retirement. The Govs struggled to start their second stint in the OVC, losing 46 of 47 games between 2013 and 2016. Since then, though, they’ve gone 61-44, won or shared three conference championships in the OVC and United Athletic Conference and appeared in the FCS playoffs twice, the first two appearances in program history.
Austin Peay continues to grow, with its 8.2% enrollment increase in 2024 tops among public universities in Tennessee. Instead of prioritizing academics over athletics or vice versa, Hoppe saw them as mutually beneficial.
“As we went back to scholarship football, it was important because it really changes how the university is portrayed,” Loos said. “How people, especially people that are getting ready to pick a college, view your university, and how your alums view the university.
“She was as competitive as anyone around, but she wanted it done the right way. We were never to sacrifice the integrity of the university to win.”
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on X/Twitter @Jacob_Shames.
This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: How late APSU president Sherry Hoppe led revival of Govs football
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos