James Robert Tarrant Jr. (February 18, 1921 – May 17, 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 ...

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 ...

. Tarrant was born in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

, in 1921 and attended Woodlawn High School in that city. He played college football at

Howard College Howard College is a community college in the U.S. state of Texas with its main campus in Big Spring and branch campuses in San Angelo and Lamesa. History Howard County Junior College was established in Big Spring in 1945. 148 students be ...

of Birmingham (now known as Samford). He was selected as a Little All-American in 1940 and transferred from Howard to Tennessee in 1941. He was declared ineligible in 1942, served in the Army for three years, and never played at Tennessee. Tarrant played professional football for the

Miami Seahawks The Miami Seahawks were a professional American football team based in Miami, Florida. They played in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in the league's inaugural season, 1946, before the team was relocated to Baltimore. They are notable ...

of the

All-America Football Conference The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the ...

in 1946. He appeared in four games, one of them as the Seahawks' starting quarterback. He completed five of 12 passes for 95 yards and a touchdown. He was rated as the best passer in the team's training camp, and a specialist in the "running jump-pass", but a leg injury kept him out for much of the season. He was released by the Seahawks on October 28, 1946. In 1948, he became the head football coach at Phillips High School and later at Banks High School, both in Birmingham. He joined the

Auburn Auburn may refer to: Places Australia * Auburn, New South Wales * City of Auburn, the local government area *Electoral district of Auburn *Auburn, Queensland, a locality in the Western Downs Region *Auburn, South Australia *Auburn, Tasmania *Aub ...

coaching staff in 1962. He served as the supervisor of Auburn's athletic dormitory. In 1963, he accepted a position as the principal of the Gibson School in

Woodlawn, Alabama Woodlawn, Alabama is a community in Jefferson County, Alabama, which is now a neighborhood within the city of Birmingham, Alabama. It grew as an independent community, and became the City of Woodlawn, and built a substantial City Hall building in ...

. He died in 2010 in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tarrant, Jimmy 1921 births 2010 deaths American football quarterbacks Miami Seahawks players Samford Bulldogs football players Tennessee Volunteers football players Players of American football from Alabama Players of American football from Birmingham, Alabama