Charles William Tate (February 20, 1919 – June 10, 1996) 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. Tate served as the head coach of the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

for six seasons during the 1960s and two games during the 1970 season.

Early life

Charlie Tate was born in the small town of Tracy City, Tennessee, and later attended Julia E. Landon High School in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

Career

Tate attended the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

in Gainesville, Florida, where he was a starting

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

for coach Josh Cody and coach

Tom Lieb Thomas John Lieb (October 28, 1899 – April 30, 1962) was an American Olympic track and field athlete, an All-American college football player and a multi-sport collegiate coach. Lieb was a Minnesota native and an alumnus of the University ...

Florida Gators football The Florida Gators football program represents the University of Florida (UF) in American college football. Florida competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Eastern Division of ...

teams from

1939 This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to ...

1941 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January–August – 10,072 men, women and children with mental and physical disabilities are asphyxiated with carbon monoxide in a gas chamber, at Hadamar Eu ...

.
2011 Florida Gators Football Media Guide
'', University Athletic Association, Gainesville, Florida, p. 186 (2011). Retrieved August 31, 2011.
, ''Sports Illustrated'' (September 11, 1967). Retrieved August 10, 2011. Memorably, he scored the Gators' only touchdown in their 7–7 tie of the

Auburn Tigers The Auburn Tigers are the athletic teams representing Auburn University, a public four-year coeducational university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. The Auburn Tigers compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

in the first varsity game ever played in the Tigers' new Auburn Stadium. Tate graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in education in 1942. Tate was the head football coach of the

Miami Hurricanes football The Miami Hurricanes football team represents the University of Miami in college football. The Hurricanes compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the Coastal Division of the Atlanti ...

team of the

in Coral Gables, Florida, from 1964 to 1970. In six seasons and part of a seventh, he compiled an overall win–loss record of 34–27–3. His best season with the Hurricanes came in

1966 Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo i ...

, when his team went 8–2–1 and won the

Liberty Bowl The Liberty Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in late December or early January since 1959. For its first five years, it was played at Philadelphia Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia before being held at Atlantic City ...

against

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

. Tate's departure from Miami was surrounded by controversy and attracted national media attention when he abruptly resigned as the Hurricanes' athletic director and head football coach after the second game of the 1970 football season.

Chuck Foreman Walter Eugene "Chuck" Foreman (born October 26, 1950) is a former American football running back who played for the Minnesota Vikings and the New England Patriots in the National Football League. Considered one of the best passing-catching backs ...

was Tate's most famous recruit in the late 1960s. When interviewed at the ESPN Club in Orlando, Florida, Foreman, who went on to have a great career in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

for the

Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansion ...

, said of Tate, "He had faith in me, as a black athlete in the South during that tumultuous time, and I will never forget him. He was a great, generous man."Florida Sports Hall of Fame, Inductees
Charlie Tate
Retrieved August 10, 2011. Tate also served as the head coach of two professional football teams, the Jacksonville Sharks and

Jacksonville Express The Jacksonville Express were a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida which competed in the World Football League (WFL) in 1975. They were preceded in 1974 by the WFL's Jacksonville Sharks, though the two teams had s ...

in the short lived

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...

in the mid-1970s. He was inducted into the

Florida Sports Hall of Fame The Florida Sports Hall of Fame (FSHOF) is an association dedicated to honoring athletes with outstanding achievement in sports in Florida. It has expanded its goals to include encouraging physical fitness among Florida's citizens through the examp ...

in 1988.

Death

Tate died in 1996 from complications related to

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

and

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

Head coaching record

College

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tate, Charlie 1919 births 1996 deaths American football fullbacks Florida Gators baseball players Florida Gators football coaches Florida Gators football players Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football coaches Miami Hurricanes athletic directors Miami Hurricanes football coaches New Orleans Saints coaches Toronto Argonauts coaches Jacksonville Sharks (WFL) coaches Jacksonville Express coaches High school football coaches in Florida People from Tracy City, Tennessee