Miami (Ohio) University has built a coaching empire. Its alumni have coached in places from Delaware to Japan, held positions as synchronized swimming instructors and equipment managers and coached at college and professional levels. Despite all these achievements, the coaches are honored to have grown up in a special fraternity-the Cradle of Coaches-in Oxford, Ohio.

The Cradle of Coaches tradition is responsible for churning out top coaches for almost a century at Miami.

However, it is the Redhawks football program that has done the most outstanding job of perpetuating the illustrious coaching tradition. Miami visits Syracuse on Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the Carrier Dome.

Football coaches who graduated from Miami include Paul Brown, who revolutionized coaching during his 20-plus years in pro football; Weeb Ewbank, who coached the New York Jets to their upset victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III; Ara Parseghian, who won two national titles while coaching Notre Dame; and Bo Schembechler, the winningest head coach in Michigan history.

Bob Kurz, author of the book ‘Miami of Ohio: The Cradle of Coaches,’ coined the term ‘cradle of coaches’ in 1959 while working as the sports information director at Miami.

‘I felt that first of all (the MU coaches) all brought something different to the table,’ Kurz said. ‘They were all, I might describe them as, teachers first and compassionate men first and fellows (to whom) winning was important and so was preparing football players for their lives.’

This commitment to players as both athletes and humans is a key component to why Miami coaches achieved so much success.

John Pont, another Miami graduate and the only coach to lead Indiana to the Rose Bowl, said he always had a policy to never let a player leave the field angry. When a player was chewed out in practice, a coach would make sure he explained to the player why he was reprimanded before he exited the stadium.

Pont said this respect for players was a characteristic passed down by all Redhawks coaches and it even showed in how they regarded their predecessors. Pont said he never tried to outdo Parseghian, just as Parseghian was never envious of legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes when Parseghian succeeded Hayes at Miami.

Instead a new coach felt a duty to effectively carry on the Miami tradition.

‘We all were different as far as people and as far as coaches,’ Pont said. ‘We didn’t want to be the one coach who didn’t measure up to Miami standards. It made us what we were and what we are. We had a tradition going here. And we passed our feelings on to the players.’

The tradition, however, appeared to be receding in the 1980s and it took a man with a fervor for football and a keen understanding of the individual to revive the legacy-the late Randy Walker.

Walker was appointed head coach in 1987. Immediately, Walker began revitalizing the Cradle of Coaches tradition. Walker focused on bringing former coaches together and emphasized tradition.

‘Randy was an integral part of (Miami football),’ Kurz said. ‘He’d do everything he could to be sure that Miami never lost sight of where it was and how it got to where it was. He was always promoting old timers like me, the guys before me. I was invited into his home and he had a museum of football memorabilia in his home categorized like a library.’

Walker also had restored the football program and became the university’s winningest coach. And before his unexpected death in June, Walker had been converting Northwestern into a Big Ten powerhouse.

Still, with its prestigious education programs and emphasis on tradition, Miami should continue to generate top-notch individuals like Walker.

Dan Dalrymple, head strength and conditioning coach under former Miami coach and current New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, received a Cradle of Coaches scholarship that allowed him to earn a spot on the Miami coaching staff as a graduate assistant.

Dalrymple never intended to be a coach when he entered Miami, but the school’s impressive history captivated him.

‘The thing that’s unique about Miami is that the tradition of coaching is pretty obvious even when you’re a player there,’ Dalrymple said. ‘The first game at Yager Stadium, Hayes came back and spoke to the team and Weebie retired at Oxford and he’d be at practices.’

Currently, Shane Montgomery heads the Miami football squad. In 2005, his first season as head coach, Montgomery led the Redhawks to a share of the Mid-American Conference East Division title. Still, Montgomery recognizes the prestigious company that preceded him.

‘It’s very humbling obviously to know that so many famous coaches have been here,’ Montgomery said. ‘And you also feel a lot of responsibility.’

However, Montgomery feels no added pressure. He said former coaches like Pont, who lives minutes away from Montgomery, have always treated him like family.

And it’s hard to expect him to be treated as anything less, since he’s the just newest coach to be raised in the exclusive cradle at Oxford.

‘I know Shane will continue the tradition,’ Pont said. ‘This is not pride or anything like that. It’s just a fact of life. He will continue.’

Published on September 20, 2006 at 12:00 pm