Well-traveled Cloverleaf grad Scott Gasper on the move again

If Scott Gasper wanted to get his résumé to fit on an 8½-by-11-inch sheet of paper, he'd have to leave off a number of jobs and use print so tiny a magnifying glass would be needed to read it. After graduating from Cloverleaf as Gazette Senior Male Athlete of the Year in 1994, Gasper played football collegiately for West Virginia Wesleyan and professionally for the Orebro Black Knights in Sweden and the Norfolk Nighthawks and Rochester Brigade of the Arena Football League. Now 50, married and a father, Gasper has had coaching stints with the Swedish national team, with at least one college team in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas and at the high school level in Illinois, Tennessee and Maryland. "The more steps you take up, the bigger the moving allowance," he said with a laugh in a recent phone interview. "I actually hire a moving company now. Up until the move to Indiana (University in 2015), I never even needed a U-Haul. Everything I owned fit in my car." A 2012 Medina County Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Gasper's current job is his biggest. Recently hired as general manager of football operations at the University of Arkansas by head coach Ryan Silverfield, with whom he also worked for one season at the University of Memphis, Gasper is in charge of recruiting and overseeing NIL deals and revenue sharing for the Razorbacks. When he left East Carolina University to work with Silverfield at Memphis, Gasper knew the 45-year-old head coach was likely to soon be on a short list of candidates for even bigger jobs, so he didn't move wife Laurin, 20-year-old stepdaughter Keira May, who is in college, or 7-year-old son Maddox to Tennessee from their home in North Carolina. The logic was twofold: In the always-changing world of college football, Gasper figured he'd either be looking for a new job when Silverfield left Memphis or following him wherever he went. In late November, the latter turned out to be true. "We see things the same way — our philosophies on recruiting and football — so we meshed very quickly," Gasper said. "I went from working with him for eight months (at Memphis) to being the first person on the plane with him coming to Arkansas." Gasper is currently living in a hotel room in Fayetteville, Ark. He will soon move into an apartment — the university will cover the costs for a month — while he searches for a home, with Laurin and the rest of the family joining him at the end of the 2025-26 school year. "The first move, from Indiana to West Virginia, was really hard on her," Gasper said of his wife. "She didn't understand the football life and how change happens so fast. By this move, she got it." Gasper met Laurin while at an eye doctor appointment in Indiana in 2016. She worked in the office, and they later had a chance meeting at a party hosted by mutual friends. Gasper had 20/20 eyesight that night. "We started talking and got along pretty well," he said. "Then she ghosted me forever, but I kept trying." Gasper's persistence paid off and they eventually started dating. In 2018, they were married and are now raising their son Maddox. (Laurin's daughter Keira is the granddaughter of Scott May, the No. 2 pick in the 1976 NBA Draft after starring on Indiana's 32-0 national championship team in 1975-76. Keira is also the niece of Sean May, who played on the North Carolina basketball team that won the 2004-05 NCAA championship.) "She has beautiful eyes and she is probably the nicest person I've ever met," Gasper said of Laurin. "She's also incredibly patient, because she's willing to live the life we've lived." After redshirting as a freshman and finishing his West Virginia Wesleyan playing career in 1998 ranked seventh on the all-time NCAA D-II passing ratings list — he set nine school records, earned a public relations degree and later got a master's in business administration from Seton Hill (Pa.) — Gasper spent most of his early coaching stops working with quarterbacks and wide receivers. While at Knoxville Catholic High from 2008-10, he coached two Tennessee Mr. Football winners. At East Mississippi Community College (2012-14), he had All-America quarterbacks all three seasons and was part of a program that went 32-2 and won National Junior College Athletic Association championships in 2013 and 2014. At Indiana, West Virginia, East Carolina, Memphis and now at Arkansas, Gasper became much more involved with recruiting and administrative duties. While he is still on-field for most practices, he now spends the majority of his time behind a desk working on NIL and revenue-sharing deals. "At East Mississippi, I coached three kids to first-team All-America honors and couldn't get an interview at an FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) school as a quarterback coach," he said. "You're sitting there wondering what you have to do to move up." Fortunately for Gasper, he had developed a friendship with Kevin Wilson, who, late in his stint as head coach at Indiana, hired the Cloverleaf graduate as director of player personnel, which opened a lot of doors. Gasper's lengthy résumé now includes stops at schools in the Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern Conference, with a lot of his current job centered around NIL deals. "It's a good thing," he said of NIL, "but like everything we do, we take it to extremes. Do kids deserve a piece of the TV money? Absolutely. The negative part of the whole NIL thing is you're giving 18-year-old kids a six-figure salary and they aren't mature enough to be able to understand how to manage that. "It's funny. A few years ago, I got into the hall of fame at West Virginia Wesleyan when NIL first came about. I was giving my speech and started laughing. The Thursday night bar I went to back then was the Kanawha Lounge. A good deal for me would have been a free cover charge and maybe a Sam's Pizza buffet." Now that he's at Arkansas getting ready to compete against the likes of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, Gasper is in an area of the country that is absolutely crazy about college football. "I've been in the Big Ten and the Big 12, but when you get here it's just the feel of the whole town," he said. "They've got a lot of other great sports here — Arkansas has an awesome track program and the men's basketball team (coached by John Calipari) is nationally ranked — but you feel the vibe of the whole town when it comes to football." In an ideal world, Gasper would love to stay at Arkansas until his son graduates from high school, but he's fully aware there are no guarantees in his chosen profession. That uncertainty is more than made up for by the thousands of experiences he's had in his playing and coaching travels. "It's been a long journey," Gasper said. "It's been a roller coaster. As far as memorable experiences, having the opportunity to play in Sweden was definitely fun. Playing in the Arena League in Rochester was a blast. There were 14 of us living in one house. We were all in our 20s playing football and having a good time. "When I got to the Division I level, all the staffs I've been on have had a different dynamic. When you're part of staffs where everyone gets fired and everyone spreads off in a different direction, it's amazing the network of people you create. "Financially, we're in a good spot right now and Fayetteville is a good town. I'd like to get my family back under one roof and not worry about making another move. Twenty years ago I just wanted to go somewhere and have a good time, but it's different now." Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4046 or rnoland@medina-gazette.com.