Buck Shaw
Biographical details | |
---|---|
Born | Mitchellville, Iowa, U.S. | March 28, 1899
Died | March 19, 1977 Menlo Park, California, U.S. | (aged 77)
Playing career | |
1918 | Creighton |
1919–1921 | Notre Dame |
Position(s) | Tackle, placekicker |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
1924 | NC State |
1925–1928 | Nevada |
1929–1935 | Santa Clara (line) |
1936–1942 | Santa Clara |
1945 | California |
1946–1954 | San Francisco 49ers |
1956–1957 | Air Force |
1958–1960 | Philadelphia Eagles |
Head coaching record | |
Overall | 72–49–12 (college) 91–55–5 (AAFC/NFL) |
Bowls | 2–0 |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Championships | |
NFL Championship (1960) | |
Awards | |
All-American Tackleall-time "Fighting Irish" football team (player) AP & UPI NFL Coach of the Year (1960) Iowa Sports Hall of Fame San Francisco Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame San Jose Sports Hall of Fame Santa Clara University Hall of Fame | |
College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1972 (profile) |
Lawrence Timothy "Buck" Shaw (March 28, 1899 – March 19, 1977) was an American football player and coach. He was the head coach for Santa Clara University, the University of California, Berkeley, the San Francisco 49ers, the United States Air Force Academy and the Philadelphia Eagles. He attended the University of Notre Dame, where he became a star player on Knute Rockne's first unbeaten team. He started his coaching career with one year as head coach at North Carolina State and four years as a line coach at Nevada in Reno.
At Santa Clara, he compiled an impressive .803 record; his first two teams posted consecutive
Early life
Shaw was born in Mitchellville, Iowa, ten miles (16 km) east of Des Moines, to cattle ranchers Tim and Margaret Shaw. One of five children (brothers Bill, Jim, and John, and sister Mary), the family moved to Stuart when Shaw was ten, where high school football had been abolished because of a fatality. He played only four games as a prep after the sport was brought back in 1917, his senior year.
College
Shaw enrolled at
Shaw was a
Coaching career
College
In the spring of Shaw's senior year at Notre Dame, Rockne came to Shaw with a couple of letters from schools seeking coaches, one from Auburn University in Alabama, and another from the University of Nevada in Reno.
Although he started his coaching career at
Shaw was at Nevada for four years, then took a job with an oil firm and wanted to stay out of the coaching field, but was talked into becoming an assistant coach at
Shaw's first two Bronco teams (1936 and 1937) went a combined 18–1, including back-to-back wins in New Orleans over local favorite LSU in the Sugar Bowl in January 1937 and 1938. Possibly the first major coach to "phone-it-in" when because of an illness, he did not travel with the team but coached them to victory over the telephone. Santa Clara dropped football after the 1942 war-time season, and Shaw stayed on campus for two years to assist the Army's physical education program on campus.
Shaw, while waiting for the professional All-America Football Conference to get off the ground, managed to mold California into a representative team and defeated a Frankie Albert-led St. Mary's Pre-Flight team, 6–0. It was a losing season overall for the Bears, but they had a good bunch of players, Shaw and his staff remarked after the 1945 season.
The second Air Force Academy varsity head football coach, Shaw guided the Falcons to a 6–2–1 mark in 1956 and a 3–6–1 record in 1957.
Professional
Shaw was the San Francisco 49ers' first head coach, working with such pro luminaries as
In
After winning the 1960 championship, the 61-year-old Coach Shaw retired, saying "I wanted to get out while I was ahead." In the quiet Green Bay dressing room, Lombardi said he was "happy for Buck". "Seeing he's going to retire, that's a nice note for him to go out on." Shaw was the oldest head coach to win an NFL championship for over 39 years, until Dick Vermeil's victory with the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV in early 2000.
Later life and legacy
After retiring from coaching, Shaw returned to California to work for a paper products company, and spent the later years of his life in Menlo Park. He and his wife had two married daughters who also lived in California.
In 1962, led by Sal Sanfilippo (SCU '30, J.D. SCU '32), former players, friends, and fans of Shaw banded together to form the Bronco Bench Foundation to raise money for and build a football stadium on the Santa Clara University campus in his honor. On September 22, 1962, the first football game, a contest between Santa Clara and
Shaw died of cancer on March 19, 1977, aged 77, at Stanford University's Branch Convalescent Hospital.[3][4]
Head coaching record
College
Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | AP# | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NC State Wolfpack (Southern Conference) (1924) | |||||||||
1924 | NC State | 2–6–2 | 1–4–1 | 18th | |||||
NC State: | 2–6–2 | 1–4–1 | |||||||
Nevada Wolf Pack (Far Western Conference) (1925–1928) | |||||||||
1925 | Nevada | 4–3–1 | 3–1 | 2nd | |||||
1926 | Nevada | 4–4 | 3–1 | 2nd | |||||
1927 | Nevada | 2–6–1 | 1–3 | 5th | |||||
1928 | Nevada | 0–7–1 | 0–4–1 | 6th | |||||
Nevada: | 10–20–3 | 7–9–1 | |||||||
Santa Clara Broncos (Independent) (1936–1942) | |||||||||
1936 | Santa Clara | 8–1 | W Sugar | 6 | |||||
1937 | Santa Clara | 9–0 | W Sugar | 9 | |||||
1938 | Santa Clara | 6–2 | |||||||
1939 | Santa Clara | 5–1–3 | 14 | ||||||
1940 | Santa Clara | 6–1–1 | 11 | ||||||
1941 | Santa Clara | 6–3 | |||||||
1942 | Santa Clara | 7–2 | 15 | ||||||
Santa Clara: | 47–10–4 | ||||||||
California Golden Bears (Pacific Coast Conference) (1945) | |||||||||
1945 | California | 4–5–1 | 2–4–1 | 6th | |||||
California: | 4–5–1 | 2–4–1 | |||||||
Air Force Falcons (NCAA University Division independent) (1956–1957) | |||||||||
1956 | Air Force | 6–2–1 | |||||||
1957 | Air Force | 3–6–1 | |||||||
Air Force: | 9–8–2 | ||||||||
Total: | 72–49–12 | ||||||||
|
Professional (AAFC/NFL)
Team | Year | Regular Season | Post Season | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Won | Lost | Ties | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
SF | 1946 | 9 | 5 | 0 | .643 | 2nd in Western Division | - | - | - | |
SF | 1947 | 8 | 4 | 2 | .667 | 2nd in Western Division | - | - | - | |
SF | 1948
|
12 | 2 | 0 | .857 | 2nd in Western Division | - | - | - | |
SF | 1949
|
9 | 3 | 0 | .750 | 2nd in AAFC | 1 | 1 | .500 | Lost to Cleveland Browns in AAFC Championship Game |
SF AAFC Total | 38 | 14 | 2 | .722 | 1 | 1 | .500 | |||
SF | 1950 | 3 | 9 | 0 | .250 | T-5th in National Conference | - | - | - | |
SF | 1951 | 7 | 4 | 1 | .636 | T-2nd in National Conference | - | - | - | |
SF | 1952 | 7 | 5 | 0 | .583 | 3rd in National Conference | - | - | - | |
SF | 1953 | 9 | 3 | 0 | .750 | 2nd in Western Conference | - | - | - | |
SF | 1954 | 7 | 4 | 1 | .636 | 3rd in Western Conference | - | - | - | |
SF 49ers AAFC-NFL Total | 71 | 39 | 5 | .621 | 1 | 1 | .500 | |||
PHI | 1958 | 2 | 9 | 1 | .182 | 5th in NFL Eastern Conference | - | - | - | |
PHI | 1959 | 7 | 5 | 0 | .583 | 2nd in NFL Eastern Conference | - | - | - | |
PHI | 1960 | 10 | 2 | 0 | .833 | 1st in NFL Eastern Conference | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Beat Green Bay Packers in NFL Championship Game |
PHI NFL Total | 19 | 16 | 1 | .543 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | |||
Official NFL Total | 52 | 41 | 3 | .670 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | |||
Professional Total | 90 | 55 | 5 | .621 | 2 | 1 | .666 | |||
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com |
References
- ^ Clark Judge (25 August 2020). "State Your Case: Why Canton should add Buck Shaw to its list of coaching candidates". si.com. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- ^ "Forty-Niners Fire Coach Buck Shaw," The Associated Press (AP), Tuesday, December 14, 1954. Retrieved February 26, 2023.
- ^ "Legendary coach dead at 77". Eugene Register-Guard. (Oregon). UPI. March 20, 1977. p. 2B.
- ^ "Ex-coach Shaw dies of cancer". Spokane Daily Chronicle. (Washington). Associated Press. March 21, 1977. p. 21.
- Much of the information in this article comes from John C. Hibner's biography of Coach Shaw in The College Football Historical Society's Newsletter Vol. II, No. I, Nov. 1988 and the Des Moines (Ia.) Register 1970 article