Harold Nichols (born November 26, 1967) is 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 ...

coach and former player. He was the head football coach at

Presbyterian College Presbyterian College (PC) is a private Presbyterian liberal arts college in Clinton, South Carolina. History Presbyterian College was founded in 1880 by the William Plumer Jacobs. He had served as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Cl ...

Clinton, South Carolina Clinton is a city in Laurens County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 8,490 as of the 2010 census. It is part of the Greenville– Mauldin– Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area. Clinton is the home of Presbyterian Col ...

from 2009 to 2016. Nichols played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

as a

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 Am ...

at Presbyterian from 1987 to 1989. He has worked an assistant football coach at

Georgia Southern University Georgia Southern University (GS or Georgia Southern) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. The flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in H ...

, the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Isla ...

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineerin ...

, and his alma mater, Presbyterian.

Playing career

Nichols played

for head coach Elliott Poss at

before graduating in 1989 as a political science major. He threw for 3,688 yards in his three seasons as Blue Hose quarterback.

Coaching career

Nichols was an assistant at PC for quarterbacks and running backs in his first two years as a collegiate coach under head coach John Perry. Then he spent five years as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at I-AA powerhouse

. In 1997, he began a three-year stay back at Presbyterian as wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator for head coach Daryl Dickey. In 2000, he began an eight-year run as associate head coach and

offensive coordinator An offensive coordinator is a member of the coaching staff of an American football or Canadian football team who is in charge of the team's offense. Generally, along with the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, this coach re ...

at the

. He then spent a season as offensive coordinator at

before getting his first crack at being a head coach after 18 years as an assistant. On January 14, 2009, Nichols was hired as head football coach of the Blue Hose, succeeding

Bobby Bentley Bobby Bentley (born August 30, 1968) is an American football coach and former player. He currently serves as an analyst at the University of Central Florida. He was one of the nation's most successful high school coaches before accepting his firs ...

. He took over a team transitioning into

NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic ...

(FCS) as a member of the

Big South Conference The Big South Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I. Originally a non-football conference, the Big South began sponsoring football in 2002 as part of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). Th ...

. This was his third stint as a football coach at his alma mater. He resigned on November 20, 2016, a day after the team's ninth regular season loss and after eight seasons at the helm of the team, going 21–67.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nichols, Harold 1967 births Living people American football quarterbacks Bucknell Bison football coaches Georgia Southern Eagles football coaches Rhode Island Rams football coaches Presbyterian Blue Hose football coaches Presbyterian Blue Hose football players People from New Smyrna Beach, Florida Players of American football from Volusia County, Florida