Roy Kidd (born December 4, 1931) is a former collegiate football league player and coach. He served as the head coach at

Eastern Kentucky University Eastern Kentucky University (Eastern or EKU) is a public university in Richmond, Kentucky. As a regional comprehensive institution, EKU also maintains branch campuses in Corbin, Hazard, Lancaster, and Manchester and offers over 40 online un ...

from 1964 to 2002, compiling a record of 314–124–8. Kidd's

Eastern Kentucky Colonels The Eastern Kentucky Colonels are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), located in Richmond, Kentucky, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the NCAA Division I ranks, primarily competing in the ASUN Confere ...

won NCAA Division I-AA Football Championships in 1979 and 1982 and were runners-up in 1980 and 1981. His 314 career victories are second-most in NCAA Division I-AA/FCS history, trailing only those of Grambling State's Eddie Robinson. Kidd was inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

as a coach in 2003.

Early life and playing career

Kidd was a star football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, 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 tea ...

player at Corbin High School in the Whitley County portion of

Corbin, Kentucky Corbin is a home rule-class city in Whitley, Knox and Laurel counties in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 7,304. Corbin is on Interstate 75, about halfway between Knoxvill ...

. At Corbin, Kidd was a basketball teammate of college All-American

Frank Selvy Franklin Delano Selvy (born November 9, 1932) is an American former National Basketball Association (NBA) player who is best known for holding the record for the most points (100) in a Division I college basketball game. Born in Corbin, Kentucky ...

. There is a street, Roy Kidd Ave., named in his honor in Corbin. He graduated from

Corbin Corbin may refer to: People * Corbin (given name) * Corbin (surname) * Corbin (musician), American singer Buildings * Corbin Building, a historic building located at 192 Broadway in New York, US * Corbin Cabin, a log structure in Shenandoah ...

in 1950 after being chosen as a first team All-State football player for the 1949 season by ''

The Courier-Journal ''The Courier-Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Ne ...

'' of

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

. Kidd was signed to a

football scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...

by Eastern Kentucky State College and 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 the

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

school from 1950 to 1953. Kidd actually turned down a scholarship to play for

Bear Bryant Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of ...

at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

because his favorite sport was baseball and the football coaches at Eastern Kentucky were willing to let him play both sports. Kidd received four

varsity letter A varsity letter (or monogram) is an award earned in the United States for excellence in school activities. A varsity letter signifies that its recipient was a qualified varsity team member, awarded after a certain standard was met. Description ...

s in football and baseball at Eastern. He established a dozen records as quarterback of the Maroons (each of these has since been tied or broken), was an All-

Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern United States. It participates in NCAA Divisi ...

selection, and was honored as a "Little All-American" choice in 1953. Kidd was also a star

center fielder A center fielder, abbreviated CF, is the outfielder in baseball who plays defense in center field – the baseball and softball fielding position between left field and right field. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the c ...

for Eastern, bettering the .300 mark four consecutive seasons. Kidd served as a student assistant on the staff of

Glenn Presnell Glenn Emery "Press" Presnell (July 28, 1905 – September 13, 2004) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He set the NFL single-season scoring record in 1933 and led the league in total offense. He was the ...

's 1954 Eastern team which went undefeated, won the OVC and lost 7–6 to

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

in the Tangerine Bowl.

Coaching career

Madison-Model

In 1955, Kidd was hired as the assistant basketball and head baseball coach at Madison Central High School in

Richmond, Kentucky Richmond is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Madison County, Kentucky, United States. It is named after Richmond, Virginia, and is home to Eastern Kentucky University. In 2019, the population was 36,157. Richmond is the fourth-la ...

. In August 1956, A. L. Lassiter, the superintendent of Richmond city schools, offered Kidd the position of head football coach at Madison-Model High School. Kidd accepted and spent the next six years as coach of the Royal Purples.

Model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the Plan_(drawing), plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a mea ...

discontinued its partnership with Madison after the 1960–61 school year and Kidd coached

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

for one season, 1961–62 school year, before moving to the college level. Kidd took over a Madison-Model program that produced a 23–36–12 record from 1947 to 1955. He led the Purples to a 54–11–1 record from 1956 to 1961. His 54 wins rank him as the third winningest coach in Madison football history behind Lassiter (86 wins in 20 years) and Monty Joe Lovell (77 wins in 11 years). Kidd's .818 winning percentage is the best in Richmond Madison football history. His first team (1956) reeled off nine wins to finish the regular season undefeated and collected the most wins of any Madison team since the sport was initiated at the Richmond high school in 1921. Under his tutelage, Madison-Model put together a 27-game winning streak (1959–1961) and was not scored upon in 15 consecutive regular season games during that span. They captured three Central Kentucky Conference (CKC) titles, in 1956, 1960 and 1961. The Royal Purples were Recreation Bowl champions in 1957 and 1961. Madison-Model went 11–0 in 1960, but, under a controversial point system, was not awarded a berth in the state playoffs. Kidd was chosen Kentucky High School Coach of the Year in his last season (1961) as his Purples went 13–1. Madison finished as the Class AA state runner-up to Fort Thomas' Highlands High School that season as Kidd's squad fell to the Bluebirds 12–0. Future college and

NFL 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 major ...

coach,

Homer Rice Homer C. Rice (born February 20, 1927) is a former American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. As Director of Athletics at Georgia Tech, Rice successfully developed and implemented the Total Person Program which is now ...

, coached Highlands.

Eastern Kentucky

In 1962, he was hired as an assistant coach at Morehead State College. The next year, he ventured back to Richmond to serve as an assistant coach at his alma mater and served under his mentor,

. After the 1963 season, Presnell retired and Kidd was hired as Eastern's head football coach 1964. In 1967, Kidd led the Colonels to the first of 16

titles during his tenure, as well as a victory in the

Grantland Rice Bowl The Grantland Rice Bowl was an annual college football bowl game from 1964 through 1977, in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's College Division, for smaller universities and colleges, and later NCAA Division II, Division II. The ...

over

Ball State Ball State University (Ball State, State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana. It has two satellite facilities in Fishers and Indianapolis. On July 25, 1917, the Ball brothers, industrialists and founders of the Ball C ...

. After being classified in the new

Division I-AA 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 ...

(now Division I FCS) in 1978, EKU and Kidd made appearances in four straight national championship games, winning in 1979 and 1982, and finishing as runner-up in 1980 and 1981. Following the national championships, Kidd's teams never suffered a losing campaign. He led the school to 18 playoff appearances, including a stretch of making the postseason in 16 out of 17 seasons. All told, Kidd led the Colonels to 16 Ohio Valley Conference titles and a national record 17 NCAA Division I-AA playoff appearances. He won the OVC Coach of the Year honor ten times and was twice honored as the NCAA Division I-AA national coach of the year. Over the course of his career, Kidd had a record of 314–124–8, a .713 winning percentage. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003. At retirement, Kidd was the sixth all-time winningest coach in NCAA history with 314 victories. To this day, Kidd still has more Division I FCS wins than any other coach in history, with 223.This win total includes only those wins earned while coaching a I-AA/FCS program. He recorded 37 non-losing seasons, including a streak of 25 straight seasons with a winning record. Kidd coached 55 All-Americans, 202 First Team All-OVC selections and 41 student-athletes who signed National Football League contracts. A member of the OVC and Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame, the Colonels' stadium was named

Roy Kidd Stadium CG Bank Field at Roy Kidd Stadium is Eastern Kentucky University's football stadium in Richmond, Kentucky. The stadium is home to the EKU Colonels football team, located on campus. Currently, CG Bank Field at Roy Kidd Stadium consists of upper ...

in his honor. The street that fronts the stadium has been renamed "Roy and Sue Kidd Way" in honor of Kidd and his wife, Susan Purcell Kidd.

Head coaching record

College

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kidd, Roy 1931 births Living people Eastern Kentucky Colonels athletic directors Eastern Kentucky Colonels baseball players Eastern Kentucky Colonels football players Eastern Kentucky Colonels football coaches Morehead State Eagles football coaches High school football coaches in Kentucky College Football Hall of Fame inductees People from Corbin, Kentucky Coaches of American football from Kentucky Players of American football from Kentucky