Robert A. Pickett (February 22, 1932 – February 3, 2010) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player and coach who served as the head football coach of at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

from 1978 to 1983.

Early life

Pickett attended high school at

Cony High School Cony High School is a public school located in Augusta, Maine, United States that educates students from Grades 9 to 12. Cony draws its students from Augusta, as well as the surrounding communities of Chelsea, China, Jefferson, Palermo, Somervil ...

Augusta, Maine Augusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of Kennebec County. The city's population was 18,899 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth-most populous city in Maine, and third-least populous state capital in the Un ...

, where he graduated in 1952. He attended

Maine Central Institute Maine Central Institute (MCI) is an independent high school in Pittsfield, Maine, United States that was established in 1866. The school enrolls approximately 430 students and is a nonsectarian institution. The school has both boarding and da ...

for one year after that, and then finished his education at the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...

where he graduated in 1959. Pickett played football for Maine and was their starting

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

Coaching career

Pickett began his coaching career after coaching as the head football and basketball coach at Laconia High School. In his first season, Laconia won the Division II state title, their second ever championship and their first since 1951. He coached at Portsmouth High School from 1962 until 1964, when he became an assistant coach at Maine. In 1971 he joined Dick MacPherson as the defensive coordinator at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was promoted to head coach following MacPherson's departure in 1978. In his first season as head coach, UMASS won the

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the an ...

championship and was runner-up finish in the

NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship The NCAA Division I Football Championship is an annual post-season college football game, played since 2006, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). From 1978 to 2005, the game was kn ...

. He served as head coach until 1983, compiling a record of 36–28 overall record and winning four Yankee Conference championships.

Later life

Pickett served as UMASS' associate athletic director until his retirement in 1997. He then as a color commentator on radio broadcasts of Minutemen football from 1998 to 2003.

Head coaching record

College

References

1932 births 2010 deaths American football quarterbacks Maine Black Bears football coaches Maine Black Bears football players UMass Minutemen football coaches High school football coaches in New Hampshire Maine Central Institute alumni Sportspeople from Augusta, Maine Coaches of American football from Maine Players of American football from Maine {{1970s-collegefootball-coach-stub