Oklahoma football: Professional worlds collide for Carol and Bob Stoops

July 22--DALLAS -- In a crowded hallway of the Omni Dallas Hotel, a woman in a bright red tweed jacket -- one of many making the walk from the convention center -- stopped and asked a question.

"What is the Big 12?" she asked, pointing to a sign that marked one of several television interview rooms.

Informed it was a college athletics conference, she asked, "Doesn't Carol Stoops' husband have something to do with that?"

A floor above, at the Big 12 Media Days, Bob Stoops was the star. He's the most successful coach in the league and contended with Texas'Charlie Strong for the largest media throng.

Downstairs, where the massive Mary Kay Cosmetics seminar dwarfs the number of attendees talking football, Carol is the show-stealer.

The professional worlds of Bob and Carol Stoops collided Tuesday at the hotel.

#Sooners and the real star of the show in Dallas... Mary Kay ace Carol Stoops. pic.twitter.com/dfnbFdb6fh

-- Guerin Emig (@GuerinEmig) July 22, 2014

On the third floor, the Oklahoma football coach ruled the room, going through a mostly relaxed and easygoing interview session that lasted nearly 90 minutes.

An escalator ride down to the second floor, though, and things changed dramatically.

While waiting for various television and radio interviews in a hallway mostly removed from the large crowd of reporters upstairs, Bob was more of a novelty for the thousands of women streaming by as they made their way to the connected Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center for the cosmetics seminar.

Carol is one of a few hundred national sales directors for Mary Kay.

During the 18-day seminar, which Carol Stoops arrived at Friday and will leave Wednesday as groups shuttle through, more than 30,000 people are expected to take part.

In Carol Stoops' group, there were about 5,000 attendees.

In 2013, the seminar and Big 12 Media Days ran at the same time as well, but Carol Stoops didn't arrive until after the Big 12 event was finished.

A math teacher at the time, Carol became involved with Mary Kay in 1991, when Bob was an assistant at Kansas State.

In less than two years, she was a director with the company. Not long after that, she earned a car through the cosmetics company. The benefit also comes with paid insurance.

To earn a Mary Kay car, one must build a sales team and that team must meet certain goals and maintain those goals in order to keep the car.

"It mattered then," Bob Stoops said while mostly blending into a group of Mary Kay seminar-goers. "It might not matter now (financially), but it mattered then."

According to Carol's website, she has earned five pink Cadillacs and gets to pick out a new pink Cadillac every two years. Her site says her highest income for a month was $21,000.

Her husband earns that in less than two days. Bob Stoops is one of four coaches nationally to make more than $5 million annually.

Carol has been a National Sales Director since 2005. Bob said she planned to retire in about a year.

"When you become a national director it's like you become a head coach," Bob said. "It's been fabulous for her."

Tuesday, Bob chatted casually with a group of reporters while a few feet away Carol did a television interview.

Bob slinked away for a minute, walking a few feet behind his wife and looking around a bit before coming back.

"That was my first photobomb," Bob said with a smile.

He took a photo with his wife and a large group of Mary Kay people but for the most part, Bob blends in with the cosmetics crowd.

"I'm Carol's husband, not Bob Stoops," he said a few hours later. "I like it. It's great. It's a great group of people; incredible leaders. Not only the women but a bunch of great guys -- their husbands -- that I've gotten to be friends with and know."

With their leadership positions, Bob said there is plenty of common ground.

"She and I talk about each other's situations," Bob said. "You guys aren't covering her as much as you're covering me but there's a lot of qualities of motivating people, leadership, this problem, that problem."

___

(c)2014 The Oklahoman

Visit The Oklahoman at www.newsok.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services