Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles is expected to step down this week. His departure is yet another symbol of the passing of one of college football's greatest generations, the great coaches who presided over the game from 1960 or so until the mid to late 1970's. Broyles coached the Razorbacks from 1958 to 1976 helping them win a championship and competing nationally in a great era against powers like Alabama, USC, Notre Dame and Michigan.Another giant of his time has left us in the mortal sense: Bo Schembechler. Schembechler coached Michigan from 1969 to 1989 becoming the face of the program until his death just before the Michigan/Ohio State game last year.
The only giants of that era still with us are Broyles, former Texas coach Darrell Royal (1957-1976) and former Notre Dame coach Ara Paraseghian (1964-1974).
Among the magnificent but dead is Alabama's Bear Bryant (1958-1982) who retired at the end of the 1982 season and promptly checked out of mortal existence. Ohio State's Woody Hayes (1951-1978) hung around until his death in 1987. Nebraska's Bob Devaney (1962-1972) checked out in 1997 and USC's comedic John McKay (1960-1975) lasted a little longer, passing away in 2001.
All those giants left the coaching ranks long ago, but each stewarded elite programs for a decade or more. To this day most of them remain the standard for which current coaches aspire to at each of their programs. Schembechler's death and Broyles' departure signal the end of their collective direct involvement in the college game.
As that great generation fades further into memory we must now also begin to take stock of the succeeding generation of coaches. I'm talking about guys like Bobby Bowden, Joe Paterno, Tom Osborne, John Robinson, Vince Dooley, Don James, Hayden Fry, Pat Dye, Lou Holtz, Lavell Edwards and Barry Switzer here.
They are the ones who were the game's caretakes from the mid to late 1970's until the late 1980's, an era of great transition and upheaval due to parity measures such as scholarship limits, the completion of racial integration and the rapid and dramatic death of plodding, run-heavy conventional offenses such as USC's "Student Body Right/Student Body Left" approach.
We'll save that analysis for another day, another time. Until then it's one final embrace of perhaps college football's "greatest generation" of coaches. Thanks for the memories, fellas.
