Maxie Callaway Baughan Jr. (born August 3, 1938) is a former
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 ...
linebacker
Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, ...
who played in 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 ...
(NFL) for the
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...
,
Los Angeles Rams, and the
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
. Baughan played
college football at
Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
.
College career
While at Georgia Tech, Baughan played and started at both linebacker and
center
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...
. In 1959, he was Georgia Tech's captain, an
All-America
The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...
n, the
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...
Lineman of the Year, and the
Most Valuable Player in the
1960 Gator Bowl. He set a Georgia Tech single-season record with 124 tackles. Baughan was inducted into the
Georgia Tech Hall of Fame in 1965 and the
College Football Hall of Fame in 1988.
NFL career
Baughan was selected in the second round of the
1960 NFL Draft
The 1960 National Football League Draft in which NFL teams take turns selecting amateur college American football players and other first-time eligible players, was held at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia on November 30, 1959. Many players, in ...
by the Eagles as the 20th player chosen overall and became an immediate starter for the team at right side linebacker. Baughan played the next 10 years in the
NFL and was voted all-pro seven times. At the conclusion of his rookie season, the Eagles won the
1960 NFL Championship, the last title for the franchise until their victory in
Super Bowl LII
Super Bowl LII was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2017 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles defeated the American Football Conferen ...
over the
New England Patriots. Baughan was selected to the
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players.
The format has changed thro ...
for the first of nine times that year, finishing the game with three interceptions. All told, Baughan would make the Pro Bowl five out of six years during his time with the Eagles. During a December 12, 1965 in a game against the
Pittsburgh Steelers, the Eagles intercepted a team-record nine passes en route to a 47-13 win. Six of those points came courtesy of Baughan when he returned a first quarter interception by Steelers quarterback
Bill Nelsen 33 yards for the lone touchdown of his NFL career.
By 1966, the number of games the Eagles won had sharply declined and Baughan decided that he wanted out of Philadelphia. However,
George Allen George Allen may refer to:
Politics and law
* George E. Allen (1896–1973), American political operative and one-time head coach of the Cumberland University football team
* George Allen (Australian politician) (1800–1877), Mayor of Sydney and ...
, who was entering his first season as an NFL head coach with the Los Angeles Rams, won the right to Baughan's services by sending two players (linebacker Fred Brown and defensive tackle Frank Molden ) to the Eagles in return. Baughan and Allen would develop a strong relationship, spending extensive time studying game film together. Baughan would later state that he learned more about football from Allen than anyone else. Baughan was chosen to be the Rams' defensive captain and was in charge of signal calling for the unit. He was selected for the Pro Bowl in each of his first four seasons with the Rams and was also named 1st Team All-Pro three times. After an injury-plagued 1970 season, in which he played in only 10 games, Baughan retired from the NFL.
Baughan's contractual rights were traded along with
Jack Pardee
John Perry Pardee (April 19, 1936 – April 1, 2013) was an American football linebacker and the only head coach to helm a team in college football, the National Football League (NFL), the United States Football League (USFL), the World Footbal ...
,
Myron Pottios,
Diron Talbert,
John Wilbur,
Jeff Jordan and a
1971 fifth-round pick (124th overall–traded to
Green Bay Packers for
Boyd Dowler
Boyd Hamilton Dowler (born October 18, 1937) is a former professional football player, a wide receiver in the National Football League. He played 12 seasons from 1959 to 1971, 11 with the Green Bay Packers and one with the Washington Redskins.
...
) from the Rams to the
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...
for
Marlin McKeever
Marlin Thomas McKeever (January 1, 1940 – October 27, 2006) was an American football defensive end, fullback and punter at the University of Southern California (USC) and a tight end and linebacker during his 13-year National Football League ...
, first and third rounders in
1971 (10th and 63rd overall–
Isiah Robertson
Isiah "Butch" Robertson (August 17, 1949 – December 6, 2018) was an American professional football player who was a linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams (1971–1978) and the Buffalo Bills (1979–1982). He was selected to six Pro Bowls during ...
and
Dave Elmendorf
David Cole Elmendorf (born June 20, 1949) is a former American football player. He played as a safety for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He was a part of the Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl XIV team. In 1997, he was inducted into ...
respectively) and third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounders in
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
(73rd, 99th, 125th, 151st and 177th overall–to
New England Patriots, traded to
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...
for
Joe Carollo
Joe Carollo (born March 12, 1955) is a Cuban-American politician who served as mayor of Miami from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2001. Following his loss in the 2001 mayoral election, he served as Doral, Florida city manager from January ...
,
Bob Christiansen
Robert Scott "Bob" Christiansen (born May 8, 1949) is a former professional American football defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL). He played for the Buffalo Bills in 1972.
For the 1971 season playing for the UCLA Bruins, he w ...
,
Texas Southern defensive tackle Eddie Herbert and to
New York Giants respectively) on January 28, 1971.
From 1972 to 1973, he was an assistant coach and defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech. In 1974, Allen, now the head coach of the Redskins, talked Baughan into a brief return to the NFL as a player-coach. At the conclusion of that season, Baughan retired. He finished with 18 interceptions (including 1 returned for a touchdown) and 10 fumble recoveries in 147 games played.
Coaching career
From 1975 to 1982, he was a
defensive coordinator for the
Baltimore Colts and
Detroit Lions. During his time with the Colts, the team won three straight
AFC East divisional championships from 1975 to 1977. He became head football coach at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1983, and his 1988 team was co-champion of the
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...
. It was Cornell's first championship since 1971. Baughan was forced to resign as head coach at Cornell after information surfaced about an affair he had with an assistant coach's wife. Baughan then returned to the NFL for stints as an assistant with the
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...
, the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The cl ...
and, finally, the
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays it ...
. He retired from coaching in 1998.
Honors
In addition to being a member of the Georgia Tech and College Football Halls of Fame, Baughan has also been inducted into the
Georgia Sports Hall of Fame
The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is located in Macon, Georgia. It is the largest state sports hall of fame in the United States at .
Exhibitions
The Hall of Fame houses over of exhibit space broken down into sections including Hall of Fame Induc ...
(1980), the
Alabama Sports Hall of Fame
The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame (ASHOF) is a state museum located in Birmingham, Alabama, dedicated to communicating the state’s athletic history. The museum displays over 5,000 objects related to athletes who were born in Alabama or earned fame ...
(1983) and the Gator Bowl Hall of Fame. However, he has not yet been inducted into the
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coa ...
, last reaching the Semifinalist stage in 2022. In 2005, he was named to the
Professional Football Researchers Association
The Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) is an organization of researchers whose mission is to preserve and, in some cases, reconstruct professional American football history. It was founded on June 22, 1979 in Canton, Ohio by wri ...
Hall of Very Good in the association's third HOVG class.
In 2012 Baughan received the
Outstanding Eagle Scout Award
The NESA Outstanding Eagle Scout Award (NOESA) is a distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the larges ...
from the
National Eagle Scout Association
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, c ...
of the
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded ...
.
On August 4, 2015, the
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...
announced that Baughan will be inducted into the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame on Monday, October 19. That day, the team played the
New York Giants on
Monday Night Football
''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...
.
Head coaching record
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baughan, Maxie
1938 births
Living people
American football centers
American football linebackers
Baltimore Ravens coaches
Cornell Big Red football coaches
Detroit Lions coaches
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football coaches
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players
Los Angeles Rams players
Minnesota Vikings coaches
Philadelphia Eagles players
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaches
Washington Redskins coaches
Washington Redskins players
All-American college football players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Western Conference Pro Bowl players
Bessemer City High School (Alabama) alumni
People from Greene County, Alabama
Coaches of American football from Alabama
Players of American football from Alabama