Clark Randolph "Dudy" Noble (May 6, 1893 – February 2, 1963) 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 wi ...
,
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 ...
, and
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
player,
track athlete, coach, and college athletics administrator.
College
Born in
Learned, Mississippi
Learned is a town in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States.
Population
The population was 94 at the 2010 census, up from 50 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Name
The community has the name of one ...
, Noble attended
Mississippi State University (then known as Mississippi A&M College) in
Starkville, Mississippi. During his college days he earned 14 varsity letters in four sports—football, basketball, baseball and track. He graduated in 1915.
Coaching and administrative career
After his college playing days were over, Noble went on to coach basketball, football, and most notably baseball at the college level for three different schools in his home state; Mississippi College, The University of Mississippi, and his alma mater Mississippi A&M.
Mississippi College
His first coaching job was as the head football coach at
Mississippi College
Mississippi College (MC) is a private Baptist university in Clinton, Mississippi. Founded in 1826, MC is the second-oldest Baptist-affiliated college or university in the United States and the oldest college or university in Mississippi.
Histor ...
in 1916. While there he earned his first coaching victory when he led the Choctaws to a 13–6 upset over
Mississippi A&M in a game played in
Aberdeen, Mississippi
Aberdeen is the county seat of Monroe County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 5,612.
Located on the banks of the Tombigbee River, Aberdeen was one of the busiest Mississippi ports of the 19th century. Cotton ...
.
The Choctaws finished the season with a record of 4–3.
Ole Miss
In 1917 Noble became the head football coach at the
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...
(Ole Miss), a position he held for two seasons. During his two years as the Rebels' head coach he compiled a record of 2–7–1 and went 0–3 against his alma mater, Mississippi A&M. He holds the distinction of having been the only head coach to lose two
Egg Bowl
The Egg Bowl (traditionally named the “Battle for the Golden Egg”) is the name given to the Mississippi State–Ole Miss football rivalry. It is an American college football rivalry game played annually between Southeastern Conference membe ...
s in one season (1918). For the 1918–19 season he served as the head basketball coach at Ole Miss going 0–3. He had his most success in Oxford as the baseball coach compiling an overall record of 10–4 in the 1918 and 1919 seasons.
Mississippi State
Starting in 1920 Noble took over as skipper of the Mississippi State baseball team, a position that he held for 26 seasons until 1947 (MSU had no baseball team in 1944 and 1945). As head baseball coach he compiled a record 267–201–9 and won three
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association championships.
During his time as head baseball coach he awarded
Dave "Boo" Ferris the first full baseball scholarship in Mississippi history.
Noble also served one season as the Bulldogs' head football coach going 3–4–2 in 1922, including a victory over his former squad from Ole Miss.
From 1938 to 1959, Noble was also the
athletic director
An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches an ...
at Mississippi State. During his tenure as athletic director he made several notable hires. Among those were football coaches
Murray Warmath
Murray Warmath (December 26, 1912 – March 16, 2011) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Mississippi State University from 1952 to 1953 and at the University of Minnesota from 1954 to 1971, compili ...
,
Darrell Royal
Darrell K Royal (July 6, 1924 – November 7, 2012) was an All-American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Mississippi State University (1954–1955), the University of Washington (1956), and the University of Texas (1957 ...
, and
Allyn McKeen
Allyn McKeen (January 26, 1905 – September 13, 1978) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at West Tennessee State Normal School, now the University of Memphis, from 1937 to 1938 and at Mississippi State Colle ...
. McKeen left as MSU's all-time winningest head coach and is the only MSU coach elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.
He hired basketball coach
Babe McCarthy
James Harrison "Babe" McCarthy (October 1, 1923 – March 17, 1975), was an American professional and collegiate basketball coach. McCarthy was originally from Baldwyn, Mississippi. McCarthy may best be remembered for Mississippi State's appearan ...
who won three SEC championships and defied state authorities to take MSU to its first NCAA basketball tournament in 1963. In 1953, he hired
Jack Cristil
Jacob Sanford "Jack" Cristil (December 10, 1925 – September 7, 2014) was the long-time radio voice of Mississippi State University Bulldog men's basketball and football. Over his 58-year tenure (1953–2011), Cristil called 636 football game ...
who would go on to be the "Voice of the Bulldogs" for 58 years.
Death and honors
Noble died on February 2, 1963 at a hospital in
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856.
Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vi ...
; he was 69 years old.
The Mississippi State baseball field was named
Dudy Noble Field
Variants of the bock, a type of bagpipe, were played in Central Europe in what are the modern states of Austria, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. The tradition of playing the instrument endured into the 20th century, primarily in the Blata, ...
in his honor in 1949. He became a member of the Helms Baseball Hall of Fame in 1954, he was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1961 and the
American Baseball Coaches Association
The American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) is the world's largest Amateur baseball in the United States, amateur baseball Manager (baseball), coaching organization. It was founded in 1945 as the American Association of College Baseball Coach ...
Hall of Fame in 1967.
Speaking on his time spent in Oxford Dudy Noble once told a Tennessee sports writer: “I already know what hell is like. I once coached at Ole Miss.” Noble once owned a bird dog, a lazy mutt that refused to hunt.
Dudy Noble named him “Mr. Ole Miss.”
Head coaching record
Football
Basketball
Baseball
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Dudy
1893 births
1963 deaths
American men's basketball players
Baseball players from Mississippi
Basketball coaches from Mississippi
Basketball players from Mississippi
College men's track and field athletes in the United States
Mississippi College Choctaws football coaches
Mississippi State Bulldogs athletic directors
Mississippi State Bulldogs baseball coaches
Mississippi State Bulldogs baseball players
Mississippi State Bulldogs football coaches
Mississippi State Bulldogs football players
Mississippi State Bulldogs men's basketball players
Ole Miss Rebels baseball coaches
Ole Miss Rebels football coaches
Ole Miss Rebels men's basketball coaches
People from Learned, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi