Melvin E. "Sam" Lyle (June 18, 1924 – May 25, 2007) 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, coach, and the founder of the

Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award The Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award is an annual college football award given to the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision head coach whose team excels on the field, in the classroom, and in the community. The award is named for Bobby Dodd, ...

Playing career

Lyle played

end End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to: End *In mathematics: ** End (category theory) ** End (topology) **End (graph theory) ** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous) **End (endomorphism) *In sports and games **End (gridiron footbal ...

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

from 1947 to 1949. He was the captain of the

LSU Tigers The LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers are the athletic teams representing Louisiana State University (LSU), a state university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. LSU competes in NCAA Division I, Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Associat ...

team that played in the

1950 Sugar Bowl The 1950 Sugar Bowl featured the second ranked Oklahoma Sooners and the 9th ranked LSU Tigers The LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers are the athletic teams representing Louisiana State University (LSU), a state university located in Baton Rouge, L ...

. He was drafted by the

New York Bulldogs The New York Yanks were an American football team that played in the National Football League under that name in the 1950 and 1951 seasons. Season by season overview 1949 The team began in 1944 as the Boston Yanks, owned by Kate Smith's manage ...

in the tenth round of the 1950 NFL Draft.

Coaching career

Lyle began his coaching career in 1951 as the ends coach 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 ...

under

Bobby Dodd Robert Lee Dodd (November 11, 1908 – June 21, 1988) was an American college football player and coach, college baseball coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945 to 1966, compil ...

. He was an assistant on the Yellow Jacket teams that won the 1952

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 ...

and the

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yug ...

and 1954 Sugar Bowls. In 1954, he moved to Oklahoma, where he was an assistant under future College Football Hall of Famer Bud Wilkinson. In his second and third seasons at Oklahoma, the Sooners won the College football national championship. In 1958, Lyle succeeded another former Oklahoma assistant,

Pop Ivy Lee Frank "Pop" Ivy (January 25, 1916 – May 17, 2003) was a football player and coach who was the only person to serve as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL), the American Football League (AFL) and the Western Interprovincial ...

, as head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos. He resigned after only one season and returned to college football as an assistant at

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

Head coaching record

Bobby Dodd Award

In 1976, Lyle created the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award. The award, named after former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Dodd, is an awarded annually to the college football head coach whose team excels on the field, in the classroom, and in the community. Lyle also served as the chairman of the executive committee of the American Sportsmanship Council, the group who sponsored the Bobby Dodd Award.

Death

Lyle died of kidney failure on May 25, 2007, in Atlanta.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyle, Sam 1924 births 2007 deaths American football ends Edmonton Elks coaches Florida Gators football coaches Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football coaches LSU Tigers football players Oklahoma Sooners football coaches South Carolina Gamecocks football coaches Players of American football from Atlanta Deaths from kidney failure