Playing career

Dimitroff was a two-time All-

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

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 ...

and

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

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 10 ...

Oxford, Ohio Oxford is a city in Butler County, Ohio, United States. The population was 23,035 at the 2020 census. A college town, Oxford was founded as a home for Miami University and lies in the southwestern portion of the state approximately northwest ...

. He passed for 1,096 yards and 11 touchdowns, and ran for 542 yards. As a kicker, he converted on 22 extra-point attempts and had a punting average of 36.2 yards. He played on two MAC championship football teams under Ara Parseghian and John Pont. He was selected by the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

in the 25th round of the 1957 Draft, but instead signed with the

Ottawa Rough Riders The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. Formerly one of the oldest and longest-lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine ...

Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. On August 23, 1958, Dimitroff started for Ottawa in the first regular-season game in

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

history. In May 1959, Dimitroff was traded along with Larry Hayes, Jim Marshall, Frank Fraser, and Karl Hilzinger to the Saskatchewan Roughriders for quarterback Frank Tripucka. Dimitroff retired shortly after the trade, never playing a game for Saskatchewan. In 1960, Dimitroff came out of retirement to play for the newly formed

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

(AFL). He signed with the New York Titans, but did not appear in any games for them. He later signed with the

Boston Patriots Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most ...

and appeared in three games, throwing two incomplete passes.

Coaching career

After serving as an assistant coach at Barberton High School and Wadsworth High School, Dimitroff returned to Miami, where he was an assistant from 1969 to 1972. After one season at Kansas State, Dimitroff joined former Rough Rider teammate

George Brancato George Brancato (May 27, 1931 – October 22, 2019) was an American/Canadian gridiron football player and coach. Both an offensive and defensive player in college, he played five games for the Chicago Cardinals during the 1954 NFL season. He rus ...

in Ottawa. From 1974 to 1977, he served as the Ottawa Rough Riders quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, helping coach Ottawa to victory in the 1976 Grey Cup, the final Grey Cup victory in Rough Riders history. In 1978, he became the head coach of the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fiel ...

. He was fired after five games and replaced by John Payne. Following his departure from Hamilton, Dimitroff coached the Guelph Gryphons football team, where his son Randy was quarterback from 1982 to 1985. Dimitroff left coaching in 1984 to serve as Director of Player Personnel for the Ottawa Rough Riders. In 1986, he was named the team's interim head coach after the firing of

Joe Moss Joseph Charles Moss (April 19, 1930 – January 31, 2023) was an American gridiron football player and coach. He played college football at the University of Maryland and professional football in the National Football League (NFL) with the Washi ...

. The Rough Riders were 0–4–1 under Dimitroff and in 1987 he joined the

as a college scout.

Family and death

He was the father of former

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

general manager

Thomas Dimitroff Thomas George Dimitroff Jr. (born July 14, 1966) is an American–Canadian football executive. He served as the general manager of the Atlanta Falcons from 2008 to 2020. Before joining the Falcons in 2008, Dimitroff was with the New England Pat ...

. Dimitroff died on January 20, 1996, in Strongsville, Ohio.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dimitroff, Tom 1935 births 1996 deaths American football quarterbacks American Football League players Boston Patriots players Cleveland Browns scouts Hamilton Tiger-Cats coaches Kansas State Wildcats football coaches Miami RedHawks football coaches Miami RedHawks football players New York Titans (AFL) players Ottawa Rough Riders coaches Ottawa Rough Riders players High school football coaches in Ohio People from Strongsville, Ohio People from Barberton, Ohio

Playing career

Coaching career

Family and death

See also

References