Frank William Thomas (November 15, 1898 – May 10, 1954) 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 football coach at the University of Chattanooga from 1925 to 1928 and at the University of Alabama from 1931 to 1946, compiling a career college football record of 141–33–9. During his tenure at Alabama, Thomas amassed a record of 115–24–7 and won four

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 ...

titles while his teams allowed an average of just 6.3 points per game. Thomas's 1934 Alabama team completed a 10–0 season with a victory over Stanford in the Rose Bowl and was named national champion by a number of selectors. Thomas's total wins and winning percentage at Alabama rank third all-time among Crimson Tide football coaches, behind only Nick Saban and

Paul "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 t ...

, whom Thomas coached in the mid-1930s. Thomas never coached a losing season, and twice his teams had undefeated, 10-win campaigns. Thomas was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.

Early life

Thomas was born in Muncie, Indiana. His parents, James and Elizabeth Williams Thomas, were recent immigrants from Cardiff, Wales. He was a star athlete in high school.

College athletics

After spending two years at Western State (MI), Thomas transferred to Notre Dame 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 ...

for coach Knute Rockne from 1920 to 1922. According to Rockne, Thomas was the smartest player he ever coached. Thomas's roommate and best friend at Notre Dame was George "The Gipper" Gipp.

Career

After graduating from Notre Dame, Thomas became an assistant coach at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

for two years before earning his first head coaching job in 1925 at the University of Chattanooga, where his teams' record was 26–9–2 in four seasons. In 1931, he accepted the head coaching job at the University of Alabama, where he established himself as one of the top coaches in the nation. His bowl record at Alabama was 4–2, with wins at the Rose Bowl (1935, 1946), Cotton Bowl Classic (1942), and

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game ...

(1943). He became the coach and mentor to future Hall of Fame coach

. Other notable players included

Don Hutson Donald Montgomery Hutson (January 31, 1913 – June 26, 1997) was an American professional football player and assistant coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played as an end and spent his entire 11-year professional career with th ...

, Vaughn Mancha, Harry Gilmer, Johnny Cain, and Riley Smith. A frequent smoker, Thomas commonly smoked cigars on the sidelines during games. Thomas fell ill with

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

and

lung disease The lungs are the primary organs of the respiratory system in humans and most other animals, including some snails and a small number of fish. In mammals and most other vertebrates, two lungs are located near the backbone on either side ...

. Too weak to both coach and take care of his mentally ill daughter, his declining health finally forced his resignation from coaching in 1946.Groom, 2000, p.80. He remained Alabama's athletic director.

Death and legacy

In 1951, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Thomas died in 1954 at the age of 55 at Druid City Hospital in

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population o ...

. An illustrated book published later that year told his story. The football practice fields at the University of Alabama are named for Thomas and his successor, Harold Drew. In 2006, a bronze statue of Thomas was erected outside of the University of Alabama's

Bryant–Denny Stadium Bryant–Denny Stadium is an outdoor stadium in the southeastern United States, on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. It is the home field of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Open ...

alongside the statues of

Wallace Wade William Wallace Wade (June 15, 1892 – October 7, 1986) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the University of Alabama fro ...

, Bear Bryant,

Gene Stallings Eugene Clifton Stallings Jr. (born March 2, 1935) is a retired American football player and coach. He played college football at Texas A&M University (1954–1956), where he was one of the "Junction Boys", and later served as the head coach at ...

and now Nick Saban, the other head coaches who have led Alabama to national championships.

Head coaching record

References

Sources

* Stone, Naylor (1954) ''Coach Tommy of the Crimson Tide''. Birmingham, Alabama: Vulcan Press. * Groom, Winston. ''The Crimson Tide - An Illustrated History''. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2000. * Bowling, Lewis. "EOA Links." Encyclopedia of Alabama: Frank Thomas. N.p., 26 Feb. 2009. Web.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Frank 1898 births 1954 deaths American football quarterbacks Alabama Crimson Tide athletic directors Alabama Crimson Tide football coaches Chattanooga Mocs athletic directors Chattanooga Mocs football coaches Georgia Bulldogs football coaches Notre Dame Fighting Irish football players Western Michigan Broncos football players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Sportspeople from East Chicago, Indiana Sportspeople from Muncie, Indiana Coaches of American football from Indiana Players of American football from Indiana American people of Welsh descent