Fired and On Fire: Earl Bruce’s Last Supper with the Press

November 16, 1987

There are moments in this life when the seams come loose and you can feel the tectonic plates of fate grinding beneath your feet — Monday, November 16, 1987, was one of those days, and Earl Bruce was the man caught in the middle of the quake.

It was noon at the Buckeye Café, but it felt more like the Last Supper than a press luncheon. Reporters filed in with notebooks and tape recorders, chasing blood like sharks circling a wounded legend. Earl Bruce — red tie, grim jaw, the very picture of Ohio grit — sat at the table like a general after the war had already been lost. At his side, Jean, his ever-steady wife, fielded glances and soft-spoken questions with Midwestern poise and the occasional flint in her eyes.

The bomb had dropped earlier that morning: President Ed Jennings had swung the axe, gutting Bruce with the surgical cruelty of a bureaucrat in a suit. One loss to Iowa — a last-second gut-punch — and the university had seen enough. Never mind the decades of service, the tradition, the fire.

But they didn’t just fire him. No, they handed him the keys to the gallows and told him to coach the Michigan game anyway. One more dance. One more war.

The room smelled of burnt coffee, stale fries, and tension. Reporters poked and prodded for outrage, for betrayal, but Bruce wouldn’t give it. The man sat stone-faced and unbowed, answering questions like a veteran watching the young lieutenants stumble through their first court martial.

“I’m finishing what I started,” he said. That was all he needed to say.

Jean Bruce, regal in the quiet way of football wives who have lived through a hundred unseen battles, added just enough softness to the moment. Her eyes said more than her words — a silent scream for dignity in a business that rarely gives it.

And beneath it all was that roar, rising in the distance: Michigan. The enemy. The final stage.

This wasn’t just a press conference. It was a funeral with cameras. And yet, through all the smoke and ego and institutional betrayal, Earl Bruce remained the last honest man in the room — a coach who knew he’d been wronged but still chose to walk out with his head high and his chin up.

Five days later, in Ann Arbor, the ghost of Woody Hayes took the field with him. The Buckeyes — against all odds, all logic, all bureaucratic judgment — beat Michigan, 23–20. The Wolverines blinked. Earl didn’t.

And afterward, Bo Schembechler, the man in the maize and blue, tipped his hat:
“I always mind losing to Ohio State,” he said, “but I didn’t mind so much today.”

That’s how legends end. Not with silence. Not with rage. But with one last middle finger to the suits, one last win in the Big House, and a press conference that turned into scripture.

Bruce was fired. But he was never defeated.

 

 

 

Earle Bruce was a former American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at the University of Tampa (1972), Iowa State University (1973–1978), Ohio State University (1979–1987), the University of Northern Iowa(1988), and Colorado State University (1989–1992), compiling a career college football record of 154–90–2. At Ohio State, Bruce was the successor to the legendary Woody Hayes, and won four Big Ten Conference titles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2002. Bruce returned to coaching in 2003 to helm the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League for a season and also guided the Columbus Destroyers the following year.