The Mourouzis tree: Deep roots, broad branches, lasting legacy By Mary Dieter
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ven 18 years after Nick Mourouzis retired, his death last Sept. 16 was a blow to DePauw University and many of its alumni. The late football coach, who presided over DePauw football for 23 seasons, left an extraordinary legacy of football success: A record of 138-87-4, which made him DePauw’s winningest football coach, and – perhaps more important – an indelible imprint on the game and the individuals who played it at DePauw. Mourouzis’s influence has reached the National Football League, with DePauw alums working as an assistant general manager, an assistant coach and collegiate scouts, and higher education, with alums working as head coaches and assistants. He called this his Tiger den; others in football call a coach’s expansive influence in the game a coaching tree. “The number of people coaching and scouting in college and the NFL?” said Pat Roberts ’95, a college scout for the Minnesota Vikings. “It’s not a mistake. That was because of Coach Mourouzis.” Other than John Carroll University, which boasts a long list of alumni working in the NFL, “I can’t think of anyone else in our division who talks about the Tiger den from the depth and breadth of the way Nick used to talk about,” said Stevie BakerWatson, associate vice president for campus wellness and the Theodore Katula director of athletics and recreational sports. “In every class that played for him, he inspired
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individuals to pursue sport as a career.” Eric Evans ’04 said that, by developing his players and his coaches and by fostering relationships across the coaching profession, Mourouzis “was able to bring opportunities to his coaching tree,” which, for a smaller school, “has got to be one of the best in the country.” For all of Mourouzis’s success in football, his energetic, upbeat approach to life and his respect for and genuine care about others off the field may have influenced his players just as enduringly, several of them said. They tell funny stories and have fond memories; many employ his methods in their own jobs and have allowed his lessons to permeate their personal behavior too. DePauw Magazine talked to 14 former players and one aspirant whose injury caused him to take another role about their relationship with Mourouzis and his effect on their lives. The list of men who played for Mourouzis is long and filled with stars, such as Greg Werner ’89, an All-American tight end and DePauw Hall of Fame member who briefly played for the NFL before becoming an orthodontist, so we narrowed the list to 15 with careers in sports. Five of them told a similar story to illustrate the coach’s enormous pride in DePauw, his unwavering belief that little things matter and his relentless pursuit of perfection. If Mourouzis spotted litter on campus – a paper straw wrapper or a cigarette butt – he’d stoop to pick it up,
or even chase it down as it swirled in the wind, and deposit it in a trash receptacle. “He won all these games (but) all he was worried about was making sure the Lilly Center and DePauw University were as good as they could possibly be in that moment,” Matt MacPherson ’99 said. “It wasn’t somebody else’s job. It was his job to pick up that trash because that meant that DePauw and the football program were going to get better that day. … I learned a lot of stuff from Coach Nick, but that’s probably the one that sticks with me maybe more than any.” To this day, Tim Cooper ’97 “can’t walk by something on the ground, out in the hallway, without picking it up and putting it in and thinking about Coach Nick talking about ‘hey, that’s school pride right there.’” Said Jeff Voris ’90: “All the little detail things that no one thinks matter, he not only thought they matter, he thought they made all the difference. And he’s right. It’s the details in life that make the difference.” Another thread that ran through these interviews? Most of those interviewed used present-tense verbs when they talked about Mourouzis, perhaps unable to grapple with his death and their inability, thanks to COVID-19, to gather en masse to mourn him. And at least four of these former football players, would-be tough guys all, choked up when they talked about their late coach.
