Joe Kuharich

College coach infobox
Name = Joe Kuharich


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DateOfBirth = birth date|1917|4|14
Birthplace = South Bend, Indiana
DateOfDeath = death date|1981|1|25
Deathplace = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
OverallRecord = 43-37
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Player = Y
Years = 1941-42; 1945
1935-37
Team = Chicago Cardinals
Notre Dame
Position = Guard
Coach = Y
CoachYears = 1964-68
1959-62
1954-1958
1952
1948-51
CoachTeams = Philadelphia Eagles
Notre Dame
Washington Redskins
Chicago Cardinals
University of San Francisco
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Joseph Lawrence Kuharich (April 14, 1917-January 25, 1981) was a noted collegiate and professional American football coach.

He was born April 14, 1917 in South Bend, Indiana. His football background stemmed from his college playing days at Notre Dame under Elmer Layden, who rated Kuharich as one of the best and smartest players he ever had. In his college career, Kuharich's greatest game was the stunning Fighting Irish comeback over Ohio State in 1935.

Early coaching career

Kuharich began his coaching career as an assistant freshman coach at Notre Dame in 1938. In 1939, he coached at the Vincentian Institute in Albany. He then moved to the pro ranks as a player, playing guard for the Chicago Cardinals in 1940 and 1941. After serving in the Navy, he returned to the Cardinals in 1945, his last season as a player. In 1946, Kuharich served as line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, then in 1947 he moved on to the University of San Francisco as line coach and was promoted to head coach in 1948. His overall record was 26-14, including an undefeated 9-0 docket in 1951. Among his most prized pupils was Ollie Matson, who would become a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back with the Chicago Cardinals. When Kuharich felt the time was right, he moved up to the NFL himself, serving as head coach of the Chicago Cardinals in 1952, succeeding Curly Lambeau. In 1953, he served as a scout for several pro teams, then in 1954 became coach of the Washington Redskins, then owned by the controversial George Preston Marshall. Once again, Kuharich succeeded Lambeau. The team "boasted" of diminutive Eddie LeBaron, the smallest quarterback in the league, who had the daunting task of succeeding the legendary Sammy Baugh. A successful campaign in 1955 landed Kuharich "Coach of the Year" honors, then hardships sent Kuharich's 'Skins to a losing stretch. After five seasons in Washington, Kuharich resigned when Notre Dame beckoned.

Notre Dame Shortcomings

He took the head coaching position at the University of Notre Dame in 1959, realizing a longtime ambition to return to his alma mater. He had earlier been courted by Notre Dame after the 1956 season, after the Irish finished 2-8, but before he had a chance to accept an offer, Terry Brennan was given a reprieve. He brought a professional touch to Irish football, putting shamrocks on the players' helmets and shoulder stripes on their jerseys. Kuharich compiled a 17-23 record over four nonwinning seasons and remains to this day the only coach ever to have an overall losing record at Notre Dame. Included was a school-record eight-game losing streak in 1960, a year in which the Irish would finish 2-8. It was one of the worst stretches in Notre Dame football history. The consensus opinion was that Kuharich never made the adjustment from pro football to college football, attempting to use complicated pro coaching techniques with collegiate players, and never adapted to the limited substitution rules in effect at the time, having big, immobile linemen playing both ways in an era where smaller, quicker players were preferred. He often said, "You win some and you lose some," and seemed perfectly content finishing 5-5 every year. This did not sit well with the Irish faithful, who expected Notre Dame to beat everybody. The team played listlessly, showing no emotion. When the pressure of winning became too much to bear, Kuharich resigned in the spring of 1963 and assumed the post of supervisor of NFL officials. Because it was so late in the spring, Hugh Devore was named interim head coach while the search for a permanent replacement was being conducted. Little did Joe know at the time that the players he had recruited would come to within 93 seconds of an undefeated season and a national championship in 1964 under first-year coach Ara Parseghian.

Kuharich was involved in a game whose controversial ending resulted in a rule change still in effect today. In 1961, Notre Dame faced Syracuse in South Bend and trailed, 15-14 with three seconds left to play. A desperation 56-yard field goal attempt fell short as time ran out, and Syracuse appeared to have won the game. But the Orangemen were penalized 15 yards for roughing the placekick holder, and given a second chance with no time showing on the clock, Notre Dame kicker Joe Perkowski drilled a 41-yard field goal for a 17-15 Irish victory. Syracuse immediately cried foul, claiming that under the existing rules, the second kick should not have been allowed because time had expired. It was later determined that the officials had erred in allowing the extra play, but the Irish victory was permitted to stand. The current rule which states that a half cannot end on an accepted defensive foul was implemented as a result of this game.

Philadelphia Eagles Tribulations

Inauspiciously, Joe Kuharich returned to the NFL coaching ranks with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1964. The team had gone through an unsteady 1963, and was ready for massive changes, although the general assumption was that these would be of a positive nature. In this hope, Eagles' owner Jerry Wolman made Kuharich head coach and general manager with an unprecedented and inexplicable 15 year contract. The new "coach for life" would work with two players the Eagles acquired in a trade with Washington: quarterback Norm Snead and defensive back Jimmy Carr. In return for the over-the-hill and soon-to-retire Carr and never-would-be Snead, Kuharich traded away Hall of Fame and perennial Pro-Bowlers Sonny Jurgensen and Tommy McDonald, great Philadelphia fan favorites who would go on to keep the Washington franchise respectable for most of the next decade. Philadelphia also acquired a tiring but still game Hall of Famer in Ollie Matson from the Detroit Lions. Despite (or perhaps as a result of) the acquisitions, the Eagles continued to decline. For their fans, already burned by the Philadelphia Phillies blowing a certain World Series berth in 1964, the decade would not get any better.

Kuharich's only winning season with the Eagles came in 1966. That gave the team a date with the Baltimore Colts in the "Playoff Bowl," a postseason exhibition intended to draw fans and help coaches plan for the following season. 1966 was also the last year (and only one of two) in which GM Kuharich drafted competently for the Eagles, selecting several fine linemen. In his remaining years he spent most high picks on talented but fragile-as-glass running backs or sturdy but unproductive ones. It was for the "Playoff Bowl" of January 8, 1967 that Kuharich became the first coach to wear a wireless microphone for NFL Films. Portions of his wiring and the Playoff Bowl itself, were used at the end of NFL Films' 1967 special "They Call It Pro Football". Later Kuharich agreed to have the Eagles' training camp screen an offbeat NFL Films presentation called "The Football Follies". Philadelphia's mediocre team laughed uproariously at the sight of NFL players making mistakes, but seem in hindsight to have made extensive mental notes for future reference.

The 1968 season would be Kuharich's last. Philadelphia fans' patience had run out as the Eagles seemingly did nothing right, even when it came to doing things wrong. Because the Eagles lost their first eleven games, often by margins belying their claim to be professionals, they were in a dogfight with the Buffalo Bills for the right to select first in the upcoming 1969 Draft predicted to be a rich one. Another lowlight was Kuharich's inability to work with one of the all-time great NFL on-field leaders, tight end Mike Ditka, for whom he had dealt a starting quarterback in trade to the Bears, and whose career before and after the Eagles was marked by sustained excellence. To top this off, Kuharich allowed his pockets to be picked by the talented Dallas Cowboy's front office, who hurriedly acquired Ditka in exchange for one of its rare serious drafting mistakes of the era which needed to be covered over and forgotten, Dave McDaniels [http://www.nfl.com/players/davemcdaniels/profile?id=MCD158200] . McDaniels proved to be one of the all-time nonentities of the NFL, never achieving a single statistical entry beyond merely suiting up as a wide receiver in a few games and who was promptly cut early in the next training camp after Kuharich's departure. In effect, Kuharich had given up Jack Concannon, the only quarterback to lead the team to a winning season since Jurgensen, and a Hall of Fame quality player in Ditka for a canine who was no more than an ugly memory by Labor Day of his first year with the team -- and helped screw up the morale of the team along the way by making those self-destructive roster moves.

All of this turned Franklin Field into a bitter home turf. Fans bellowed "Joe Must Go" at each game. When a rumor emerged that someone threatened to shoot Kuharich, plainclothes security ringed the stadium to prevent sniper fire. Any games at Franklin Field that year more closely approximating NFL level skills and competition were played on Saturdays featuring the University of Pennsylvania Quakers against Ivy League opponents and the Philadelphia City High School championship [http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/6925/philly.html] .

It did not help that Kuharich could not get his message across to virtually anybody. He was noted for crossing up expressions, such as "bat on a hill," "fine kennel of fish," and "Now the shoe is on the other side of the table." Nonetheless, Kuharich must be credited with being the NFL head coach who first perfected the offensive game plan of "run, run, pass, punt," built around limited yardage gains by excellent fullback Tom Woodeshick who was handicapped by a poor offensive line, followed by an incompletion by Kuharich favorite Norm Snead and the inevitable change of possession, often culminating in points for the opponent.

The nadir period of Eagles football and their hunt for the top pick began on Thanksgiving Day 1968, when Sam Baker kicked all the points in the Eagles' 12-0 shutout of the patheticDetroit Lions. Anticipating this might cost them a chance to draft O. J. Simpson No. 1 overall, vigilante civilians, calling themselves "The Committee to Rejuvenate the Philadelphia Eagles," took action. They urged season-ticket holders to boycott the remaining two home games as a protest to team misfortunes under Kuharich. As might have been expected, Philadelphia's worst fears came true that Sunday, December 8. The Eagles beat the equally woeful second year expansion New Orleans Saints in Franklin Field; this win guaranteed the Buffalo Bills (whose bye week fell on the season's last Sunday) would get the top draft pick in 1969. In one of Kuharich's last acts of aggression against the moribund Eagles franchise he used the club's third overall draft pick to select Purdue halfback and failure-to-be Leroy Keyes, along with selection of several other mediocrities who helped to cement the team's future as a last place perennial for the next decade. Keyes was publicized as a close peer to Simpson based on one successful game against Notre Dame, but instead contributed little to the team after holding out to extort a large contract and promptly thereafter injuring his achilles tendon with a bad Army Reserve combat boot. Ultimately, he wound up as a mediocre defensive back which was, in fact, a more impressive fate than almost any other high Kuharich pick after 1966, most of whom eventually became most prominent on the waiver wires unless, like Bob Kuechenberg, they were released to wind up with a well-run, well-coached organization after failing to be noticed or appreciated by incompetent Eagles front office staffs during the Kuharich era and beyond.

If the victory over the Saints was bad enough, what happened the next Sunday was even worse. In a season-ending loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Eagles fans lustily booed a man, who was clearly (but understandably in light of the occasion) drunk, dressed as Santa Claus when he rode around Franklin Field.

Three months after the fiasco of the 1969 NFL draft, financially-distressed owner Jerry Wolman sold the Eagles on May 1, 1969 to trucking millionaire Leonard Tose, mercifully ending the Kuharich regime, but only beginning its hangover. Tose and Kuharich agreed to a settlement on the final eleven years of the ex-coach's $60,000 annual contract. Although it would take many years to be confirmed, events ultimately proved what Philadelphia fans believed at the time: this was money well spent.

Kuharich died in Philadelphia January 25, 1981, the same day the Eagles lost Super Bowl XV to the Oakland Raiders.

Personal life

Kuharich was married to the former Madelyn Eleanor Imholz on October 6, 1943. They had two sons, Joseph Lawrence, Jr. (Lary) a former CFL and AFL head coach, and Bill who has followed in his father's footsteps as the New Orleans Saints General Manager from 1996-2000 and Vice President of Player Personnel and General Manager presumptive for the hapless Kansas City Chiefs (2006-present). [http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/831737.html]

External links

* [http://und.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/kuharich_joe00.html Notre Dame bio]