The Cradle of Coaches is a nickname given to

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the ...

Oxford, Ohio Oxford is a city in Butler County, Ohio, United States. The population was 23,035 at the 2020 census. A college town, Oxford was founded as a home for Miami University and lies in the southwestern portion of the state approximately northwest ...

for its history of producing successful sports coaches, especially in football. Bob Kurz, a former Miami sports communications worker, popularized the term in a 1983 book, though the school's association with the nickname goes as far back as the early 1960’s. Miami frequently inducts former coaches into the Cradle of Coaching Association for their feats as alumni.

Personnel

The program's largest cohort are football coaches

Earl Blaik Earl Henry "Red" Blaik (February 15, 1897 – May 6, 1989) was an American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and United States Army officer. He served as the head football coach at Dartmouth College from 1934 to 1940 and at ...

Paul Brown Paul Eugene Brown (September 7, 1908 – August 5, 1991) was an American football coach and executive in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL). Brown was both the co-founder and first coach of the Clevela ...

Woody Hayes Wayne Woodrow Hayes (February 14, 1913 – March 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Denison University (1946–1948), Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (1949–1950), and Ohio State University (1951 ...

Bill Arnsparger William Stephen Arnsparger (December 16, 1926 – July 17, 2015) was an American college and professional football coach. He was born and raised in Paris, Kentucky, served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and graduated from Mi ...

, George Little,

Weeb Ewbank Wilbur Charles "Weeb" Ewbank (May 6, 1907 – November 17, 1998) was an American professional football coach. He led the Baltimore Colts to consecutive NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 and the New York Jets to victory in Super Bowl III in Janu ...

Sid Gillman Sidney Gillman (October 26, 1911 – January 3, 2003) was an American football player, coach and executive. Gillman's insistence on stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes, instead of short passes to running backs or w ...

Ara Parseghian Ara Raoul Parseghian (; hy, Արա Ռաուլ Պարսեղյան; May 21, 1923 – August 2, 2017) was an American football player and coach who guided the University of Notre Dame to national championships in 1966 and 1973. He is noted for br ...

, Bo Schembechler,

John Pont John Pont (November 13, 1927 – July 1, 2008) was an American football player and coach. He served as head coach at Miami University, Yale University, Northwestern University and Indiana University. Early life Pont was born on November 13, 1927 ...

Carmen Cozza Carmen Louis "Carm" Cozza (June 10, 1930 – January 4, 2018) was an American football and baseball player and coach of football. He served as the head football coach at Yale University from 1965 to 1996, winning ten Ivy League championships and ...

Bill Mallory William Guy Mallory (May 30, 1935 – May 25, 2018) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Miami University (1969–1973), the University of Colorado at Boulder (1974–1978), Northern Illinois Universi ...

, Jim Tressel,

Joe Novak Joe Novak (born April 19, 1945) is a former American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Northern Illinois University from 1996 to 2007, compiling a record of 63–76. Novak played college football as a defensive en ...

Ron Zook Ronald Andrew Zook (; born April 28, 1954) is an American football coach and former player who currently serves as the Defensive Coordinator of the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL. He was the head football coach at the University of Florida from ...

, Dick Crum,

Paul Dietzel Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, Bill Narduzzi, Randy Walker,

John Harbaugh John William Harbaugh (born September 23, 1962) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). Previously, he coached the defensive backs for the Philadelphia Eagles and served ...

, Nobby Wirkowski,

Gary Moeller Gary Oscar Moeller (; January 26, 1941 – July 11, 2022) was an American football coach best known for being head coach at the University of Michigan from 1990 to 1994. During his five seasons at Michigan, he won 44 games, lost 13 and tied 3 f ...

, Larry Smith,

Dick Tomey Richard Hastings Tomey (June 20, 1938 – May 10, 2019) was an American football coach and player. Tomey served as the head football coach at the University of Hawaii at Manoa (1977–1986), University of Arizona (1987–2000), and San Jose State ...

Terry Hoeppner Terry Lee Hoeppner (August 19, 1947 – June 19, 2007) was an American college football coach who served as head coach of the Miami RedHawks from 1999 to 2004 and the Indiana Hoosiers from 2005 to 2006. Shortly after announcing that he would be ...

, and

Sean McVay Sean McVay (born January 24, 1986) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League (NFL). He became the youngest NFL head coach in the modern era when he was hired by the Rams in 201 ...

. Miami has also produced notable

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

coaches Darrell Hedric,

Randy Ayers Randall Duane Ayers (born April 16, 1956) is an American basketball coach who is currently an assistant coach (through a coaching advisor position) for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association. Ayers grew up in Springfield, Ohio an ...

Herb Sendek Herbert Joseph Sendek Jr. (born February 22, 1963) is an American college basketball coach who is the current men's basketball head coach at Santa Clara. Early life Herbert Joseph Sendek, Jr. of Slovak descent, grew up in Pittsburgh and attended ...

Thad Matta Thad Michael Matta (born July 11, 1967) is an American college basketball coach and the current head coach of the Butler Bulldogs men's basketball team. From 2004 to 2017, Matta led the Ohio State Buckeyes to five Big Ten Conference regular seas ...

and

Sean Miller Sean Edward Miller (born November 17, 1968) is an American college basketball coach who currently serves as head coach of the Xavier Musketeers. He previously was in that position from 2004 to 2009, after which he took the head coach position f ...

. Hedric, currently a scout for the Toronto Raptors, is an Ohio and Cincinnati Basketball Hall of Famer and holds the record for Miami victories. Ayers was a four-year starter for Miami, leading the team to back-to-back NCAA appearances in 1977 and 1978, and later served as a head coach for

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

and assistant coach in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

. Sendek began his head coaching career at Miami and led the RedHawks to the postseason in each of his three seasons. Matta, formerly the head coach at

, was an assistant under Sendek for one memorable year that included a regular season MAC championship and NCAA tournament appearance, and also for one year under then-head coach Charlie Coles. University of Tennessee basketball coach

Ray Mears Raymond Paul Mears (born 7 February 1964) is a British woodsman, instructor, businessman, author and TV presenter. His TV appearances cover bushcraft and survival techniques. He is best known for the TV series '' Ray Mears' Bushcraft'', '' Ra ...

is also a graduate of Miami. Baseball Hall of Fame manager

Walter Alston Walter Emmons Alston (December 1, 1911 – October 1, 1984), nicknamed "Smokey", was an American baseball player and manager in Major League Baseball He is best known for managing the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1954 through 1976, and si ...

is also a graduate of Miami. Additionally, hockey coach George Gwozdecky served as head coach at Miami prior to leaving for Denver, where he won two national championships. The Cradle of Coaches also was the subject of sports

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

that aired on

Time Warner Cable SportsChannel (Ohio) Spectrum Sports is a defunct regional sports network serving Ohio and parts of northern Kentucky, southern Michigan and western Pennsylvania operated by Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016. It was broadc ...

in 2015. The film captured the story of

's induction as well as perspective from other members.

Cradle of Coaches Association Inductees

Super Bowl winning former head coach John Harbaugh was inducted in their Hall of Fame in 2014.

The Mother of Coaches

The McGuffey Reader, the Mother of Fraternities, The Miami Triad ( Beta Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta,

Sigma Chi Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more t ...

)..all these were attributed to Miami University (founded in 1809) in Oxford, Ohio. In the fall of 1959, Bob Kurz, Sports Information Director and a recent graduate (1958)recounted that several Miami graduates were making history on the football field. Louisiana State University under Paul Dietzel, ’48, was listed as number 1 in the country. Northwestern University under Ara Parseghian, ’48 was number 2; Earl (Red) Blaik ’18 was leading Army to an undefeated season while Paul Brown ’30 was guiding the Cleveland Browns and Weeb Eubank ’28 was leading the Baltimore Colts. Both pro teams were on top of their divisions. It was a short leap from the ‘mother’ moniker to a cradle: The next day Kurz wrote the phrase that has become synonymous with Miami University football, Miami of Ohio, the Cradle of Coaches. Hi
book
on the history of Miami's coaches was written in 1983.

''The Cradle of Coaches'' sculpture group

A sculptural group called ''The Cradle of Coaches'', by sculptor

Kristen Visbal Kristen Visbal (born December 3, 1962) is an American sculptor living and working in Lewes, Delaware. She specializes in lost-wax casting in bronze. Biography Visbal was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, the daughter of American Ralph Albert and El ...

, was erected at Miami University between 2009 and 2011, with one addition in 2014. It consists of ten 120% lifesize statues of

, Carm Cozza,

, Bo Schembechler, and Thomas Van Voorhis.

References

External links