John Coatta (April 5, 1929 – December 26, 2000) 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 ...

player and coach. He served as the head coach at the

Wisconsin Badgers The Wisconsin Badgers are the athletic teams representing the University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin). They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level ( Football Bowl Subdivis ...

from 1967 to 1969 and at Mankato State College, now

Minnesota State University, Mankato Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU, MSU, or Minnesota State) is a public university in Mankato, Minnesota, United States. It is Minnesota's second-largest university and has over 123,000 living alumni worldwide. Founded in 1868, it is ...

, from 1970 to 1975, compiling a career college football record of 38–50–3. Coatta played

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 ...

at Wisconsin from 1949 to 1951 and in 1950, he set the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

season pass completion percentage record (64.2%), a mark that he held until 1977.

Coaching career

In 1959, Coatta left private business in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

to accept an assistant football coaching job at Florida State University under

Perry Moss Perry Lee Moss (August 4, 1926 – August 7, 2014) was an American football player, coach, and executive. Moss played tailback at the University of Tulsa and quarterback at Illinois during the 1940s. As a Tulsa tailback, he was on the Orange Bo ...

and subsequently

Bill Peterson William E. Peterson (May 15, 1920 – August 5, 1993) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. His career included head coaching stops at Florida State University, Rice University and with the Houston Oilers of ...

. From 1959 to 1964, he coached a number of positions at the school. He then returned to Wisconsin as an assistant coach under Milt Bruhn for two seasons after which he was promoted to head coach. During his head coaching tenure at Wisconsin, Coatta compiled a 3–26–1 (.117) record. He set an

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

record for most consecutive games without a win to begin a career with 23. Coatta did not win a game in his first two seasons. His three wins came in 1969 against

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

, 23–17,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, 36–34, and

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

, 53–14. Allegedly, the Badgers passed on future

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

head coach Bo Schembechler when they hired Coatta. Schembechler was the head coach at

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 ...

at the time.Temple, Jesse. "Excerpt: How Bo Schembechler and Bob Knight could've been Badgers," ESPN.com, Tuesday, September 27, 2016.
Retrieved March 26, 2020 After Minnesota State temporarily dropped football after the 1975 season, Coatta joined the staff of

Cal Stoll Calvin C. Stoll (December 12, 1923 – August 25, 2000) was an American football player and coach. He played Defensive End for the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the 1948 and 1949 seasons. Before graduating from Minnesota in June 1950, Stoll was nam ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 1977 to 1978. He later scouted for 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 ...

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divi ...

and Seattle Seahawks.

Head coaching record

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coatta, John 1929 births 2000 deaths American football quarterbacks Dallas Cowboys scouts Florida State Seminoles football coaches Minnesota Golden Gophers football coaches Minnesota State Mavericks football coaches Seattle Seahawks scouts Wisconsin Badgers football coaches Wisconsin Badgers football players Sportspeople from Dearborn, Michigan