Miami of Ohio will play at the same stadium Saturday afternoon where a few of its coaching alums led the Arizona program.
Jim Young. Larry Smith. Dick Tomey. John Mackovic.
Three of them are from Ohio — Young and Smith are Van Wert natives and Mackovic was born in Barberton. Tomey is from Elnora, Indiana — a bordering state of Ohio.
All of them became Arizona head coaches after beginning their coaching careers learning the craft under Bo Schembechler at Miami’s Oxford, Ohio, campus.
The Redhawks (8-5) — representing the program known as the “Cradle of Coaches” with its rich history of coaches who became legendary — will face Colorado State (8-4) at Arizona Stadium at 2:30 p.m. in the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl, presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop.
Colorado State coach Jay Norvell acknowledged Miami of Ohio’s coaching past in a video press conference Monday.
“I’m a traditionalist; I love tradition and college football,” he said. “You grow up in this profession, you have a lot of respect for Miami. Woody Hayes coached there. Bo Schembechler coached there. It’s the cradle of coaches.
“(Current Miami coach) Chuck Martin has done a fantastic job with this program. He’s a veteran coach. Their team knows who they are. They don’t try to be anything different. And it’s going to take a real monster effort for us to win this game, and we’re excited to prepare for that.”
Some of the other big names to coach at Miami: Paul Brown, Bill Arnsparger, Weeb Ewbank, Sid Gillman, Ara Parseghian, John Pont, Carmen Cozza, Bill Mallory, Ron Zook, Dick Crum, Bill Narduzzi, and Gary Moeller.
Eleven statues of Miami’s coaching titans are on display outside of the Redhawks’ Yager Stadium.
NFL coaches John Harbaugh and Sean McVay, both of whom have won Super Bowls as a head coach, did not coach at Miami but they entered the coaching profession immediately after playing for that program.
Harbaugh, who led the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl championship in 2013 against his brother Jim and the San Francisco 49ers, played defensive back for Miami and graduated from there in 1984 with a political science degree. His father Jack coached with Schembechler at Michigan. John’s coaching career began the same year he earned his degree at Miami. Mid-American Conference rival Western Michigan hired him as its running backs and linebackers coach in 1984.
McVay, who coached the Los Angeles Rams to the Super Bowl title in 2022, played wide receiver at Miami from 2004 to 2007 and immediately afterward became a receiver assistant coach in 2008 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers under Jon Gruden. McVay’s dad John also played at Miami from 1950-52 and later was the head coach at Dayton and with the New York Giants.
Young coached under Schembechler (a Miami graduate) at Miami from 1964 to 1968 before leaving with Schembechler to Michigan, where Young was defensive coordinator.
After four seasons at Michigan, Young was hired at Arizona in 1973. Young and his wife Jane became interested in living in Tucson when he and Schembechler came here in 1970 to scout Arizona’s spring practice (which was allowed at the time). The Wildcats played at Michigan in the fall of 1970 and lost 20-7.
Just a few months before the excursion of Schembechler and Young to Tucson, Young coached Michigan in place of Schembechler in the Rose Bowl against USC because Schembechler was hospitalized due to a mild heart attack.
Young was a fullback on the 1954 national champion Ohio State team coached by Hayes, who was the head coach at Miami in 1949 and 1950 before embarking on his legendary Buckeye career.
The buckeye rewards on Ohio State’s helmet reportedly were the brainchild of Young when he played for Hayes.
Young transferred to Bowling Green in 1956 when Doyt Perry of the Ohio State staff became head coach there.
Arizona went through three straight losing seasons before Young arrived in 1973. In his first season, he led Arizona to an 8-3 record and a co-championship with BYU in the WAC.
In four years at Arizona, his record was 31-13. His 1975 team, behind dual-threat quarterback Bruce Hill, was fifth in the nation in offense.
A 2007 College Football Hall of Fame inductee, Young went on to coach at Purdue from 1977-81 and Army from 1983-90. His career record, covering 16 years, was 120-71-2. He returned to Arizona in 1992-94 as an assistant coach under Tomey.
He is 89 and has long lived in retirement in Tucson.
Young’s first staff at Arizona contained three men who would become head coach of the Wildcats: Smith (1980-86), Mackovic (2001-2003) and Mike Hankwitz, who served as interim coach when Mackovic was fired during the 2003 season.
Smith mentioned in interviews that he and Young were like brothers with their relationship.
Smith played defensive end for Bowling Green when Young was an assistant there in 1959. Smith was part of Young’s staff at Lima (Ohio) Shawnee High School in 1962 and 1963 before taking over for Young there in 1964.
Smith, Arizona’s coach from 1980 to 1986, joined Young in 1967 and 1968 at Miami under Schembechler as the defensive ends coach. They left with Schembechler to Michigan with Smith becoming the offensive line coach for the Wolverines.
Young brought Smith to Tucson in 1973 as the associate head coach and defensive coordinator.
“This is the way it should be,” Schembechler reasoned in a 1973 Arizona Daily Star article about losing Young and Smith to the Wildcat program. “As much as I regret losing them, it had to happen. It gives other men on my staff a chance to move up.”
Three other Schembechler assistants at the time came with Young to Tucson — Hankwitz, Bob Bockrath and Tom Reed.
Bockrath later became an athletic director at Arizona, California, Texas Tech, Alabama and Yavapai College in Prescott.
Chuck Stobart, who coached with Young and Smith at Miami and Michigan, joined Smith’s staff at Arizona in 1986 as the offensive coordinator. John Matsko, part of Miami’s staff as a graduate assistant in 1974 and 1975, was the offensive line coach for Arizona in 1986, when the Wildcats finished 9-3 and beat Rose Bowl-bound Arizona State (the game in which Chuck Cecil returned an interception 100 yards for a touchdown).
That was the last year of Smith’s tenure at Arizona before he left to USC and took Stobart and Matsko with him.
Tomey took over, continuing the chain of former Miami coaches leading Arizona’s program — Young to Smith to Tomey.
Tony Mason, who served on Schembechler’s staff at Michigan and coached at Cincinnati, was in the middle of that run, leading Arizona’s program from 1977 to 1979.
Tomey was a graduate assistant and freshman team coach at Miami in 1962 and 1963 under Schembechler.
When the late Tomey left Miami to coach the freshman team at Northern Illinois in 1964, Schembechler was not keen on the move because the old coach believed Tomey should have endured a longer background coaching in Ohio.
“Bo sincerely felt that if you left Ohio, you left your contacts, you left Mother Football,” Tomey said in a 1997 Arizona Daily Star article. “He felt like that’s where football is. I just love him. Bo’s the best.
“But now he laughs about the fact that he got that one wrong.”
Tomey later coached under Homer Smith at Davidson and Pepper Rodgers at Kansas and UCLA before leading the programs at Hawaii, Arizona and San Jose State. His 95 wins at Arizona from 1987 to 2000 are the most in Wildcat history.
Mackovic then continued the string of Miami coaches leading the Arizona program but that turned out to be a dark period of the program. He was fired midway through the 2003 season following a player uprising against him to Arizona’s athletic department for mistreatment. Arizona was 10-18 overall and 3-14 in the Pac-10 under Mackovic.
Mike Stoops, another Ohio native from Youngstown, was his full-time replacement in 2004 after Hankwitz coached the last seven games of the 2003 season. Stoops elevated the program to bowl appearances in 2008 to 2010 before he was fired midway through the 2011 season after the Wildcats started 1-5.
It was quite a quarter-century run for Arizona with coaches having Miami backgrounds coaching under Schembechler in Oxford.
Young (31-13 at Arizona), Smith (48-28-3) and Tomey (95-64-4) went a combined 174-105-7 in 25 seasons with the Wildcats.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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