UDMessenger

Volume 12, Number 2, 2003


Raymond makes 3 in a row for national recognition

Harold R. "Tubby" Raymond, the highly successful University of Delaware football head coach who retired after the 2001 season with 300 wins and three national championships, was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame during ceremonies Aug. 8-9 in South Bend, Ind.

Raymond, who was head coach of the Fightin' Blue Hens for 36 seasons, was one of nine individuals selected to the divisional hall of fame, which includes coaches and players from NCAA Divisions I-AA, II and III and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).

Raymond was joined by fellow coaches Roy Kidd of Eastern Kentucky University, who retired following the 2002 season, and Marino Casem, who coached at Alabama State, Alcorn State and Southern universities over 26 seasons until 1992.

In addition to the three coaches, six players were selected for inclusion in the divisional Hall of Fame. They are quarterback Brad Calip of East Central University of Oklahoma (1981-84), tight end Dwayne Nix of Texas A&M University-Kingsville (1965-68), running back Scott Reppert of Lawrence University of Wisconsin (1979-82), end Willie Richardson of Jackson State University (1959-62), tackle Calvin Roberts of Gustavus Adolphus College of Minnesota (1949-52) and running back Ben Stevenson of Tuskegee University (1924-30).

Raymond became the third straight UD football head coach to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining his direct predecessors Dave Nelson (1952-1965) and Bill Murray (1940-51).

Raymond also is a member of the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame and the University of Delaware Athletics Hall of Fame.

Raymond enjoyed a career at UD that started as an assistant football coach in the mid-1950s. Under his direction as head coach, beginning in 1966, the Blue Hens compiled a 300-119-3 record, making him one of only nine coaches in the history of college football to reach 300 victories and just the fourth to do so at one school.

He left coaching ranked third in victories behind only Eddie Robinson of Grambling and Kidd at Eastern Kentucky in NCAA Division I-AA.

Raymond's accomplishments are staggering. The list includes:

Thirty-one of Raymond's 36 teams had had winning records, including a streak of 13 straight winning seasons. Only 13 times did a Raymond-coached squad have fewer than eight victories.

The team success brought Raymond numerous honors, including the distinction of being just one of two college division coaches to win consecutive American Football Coaches Association Coach of the Year awards. Raymond was cited in 1971 and 1972, when he coached Delaware to back-to-back national titles. The only other coach to match that feat was Wittenberg's Bill Edwards, in 1962 and 1963.

In 1979, after winning the NCAA Division II national championship, ABC Sports and Chevrolet named Raymond the NCAA Division II Coach of the Year.

On the district level, Raymond was named AFCA College Division District II (now NCAA I-AA Region I) Coach of the Year seven times, including the 1995 season, and the New York Football Writers Association ECAC Division I-AA Coach of the Year twice, including the 1992 campaign.

Raymond came to Delaware from the University of Maine in 1954 and served as Dave Nelson's backfield coach for 12 years before Nelson, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame who died in 1991, resigned to devote full-time to his athletic director duties.

Called "Tubby" by his childhood playmates, Raymond lost the weight but not the nickname. A native of Flint, Mich., and a 1950 graduate of the University of Michigan, Raymond played football and baseball for the Wolverines and captained the 1949 baseball team.

He played minor league professional baseball for two years and was head football coach at University High School in Ann Arbor, Mich., before heading to the University of Maine.

He served as Blue Hen baseball coach for nine years and compiled the second best coaching record in the history of the sport at UD with a mark of 141-56. Six of Raymond's nine baseball teams qualified for the NCAA District II playoffs.

He left the baseball post­giving way to his assistant, recently retired Bob Hannah­before the 1965 season to become a full-time football assistant.