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May 21, 2002 -- The University of Delaware Board of Trustees voted during its meeting Tuesday, May 21, to recognize UD’s recently retired head football coach Harold R. "Tubby" Raymond by naming the playing field in Delaware Stadium in his honor.
The playing surface will now be called Tubby Raymond Field, and will be officially dedicated on Aug. 29, when the Fightin’ Blue Hens take on Georgia Southern. This night opener has been designated Tubby Raymond Day.
Raymond, who retired in February after a 36-year career as head coach at Delaware, became just the ninth coach in the history of college football to reach 300 victories.
“It is highly appropriate that something be done to recognize his tremendous accomplishment," trustee R.R.M. "Ruly" Carpenter III said. “The naming of Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium is very appropriate and well-deserved."
"In the recent past, the University of Delaware's Board of Trustees has provided special recognition by naming UD athletics venues for three outstanding coaches, each of whom earned national icon status in their sports and in the larger enterprise of collegiate athletics,” University President David P. Roselle said. They include Bob Hannah, for whom the baseball stadium is named; David Nelson, for whom the athletics complex is named; and Barbara Viera, for whom the volleyball court is named.
"Today, the trustees have added Coach Raymond to this list by naming Delaware Stadium's football field in his honor. Coach Raymond is a football icon and the newly christened Raymond Field is where many of his greatest victories were recorded. It is fitting that there is now a oneness of the coach and his field."
Carpenter, who spent time as an assistant coach on Raymond's 1963 UD baseball team, said the coach's success can be laid to "attention to detail, sound fundamentals, a passion for the game and an ability to instill that in his players."
Raymond has accounted for more than 50 percent of Delaware's 575 all-time victories in 110 seasons of intercollegiate competition. He retired with a record of 300-118-3.
With a 10-6 victory over Richmond on Nov. 10, 2001, Raymond became just the ninth coach in college football history to record 300 wins. The others, college football legends all, are Eddie Robinson, John Gagliardi, Joe Paterno, Paul "Bear" Bryant, Bobby Bowden, Pop Warner, Amos Alonzo Stagg and Roy Kidd.
And, Raymond is one of just four coaches – Robinson, Paterno and Kidd are the others – who won 300 games at one institution.
Raymond's Delaware teams won three national titles, 14 Lambert Cup Eastern Championships and made appearances in 16 NCAA Division II and NCAA I-AA tournaments.
He was inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and received the Vince Lombardi Football Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999. Also that year, he was named to the University of Delaware Wall of Fame.
In addition, Raymond will deliver the 2002 Commencement address on Saturday, May 25.
Raymond, a native of Flint, Mich., who played football and baseball for the University of Michigan, first joined the University of Delaware staff in 1954. He served as an assistant football coach to Dave Nelson and also as head baseball coach.
In 1966, Raymond took the reins from Nelson as head football coach. He continued to refine the fabled Delaware Wing-T offense and continued UD's winning tradition, compiling a record of 6-3 and winning the Middle Atlantic Conference championship.
Even greater things were in store as the Hens were voted back-to-back AP and UPI Small College National Championships in 1971, with a record of 10-1, and 1972, with a perfect mark of 10-0.
Raymond's teams were NCAA Division II national runners-up in 1974 and 1978, and won the national title in 1979.
K.C. Keeler, who was named to succeed Raymond as UD head coach, played linebacker for the Blue Hens and was a letter winner on the 1978, 1979 and 1980 teams.
Delaware moved up to NCAA Division I-AA, reaching the playoff quarterfinals in 1981 and the championship game in 1982.
The Hens reached the NCAA Division I-AA semifinals twice in Raymond's last five years, in 1997 and 2000, bearing out the assessment of longtime UD fan and Delaware Stadium announcer Elbert Chance in his 1989 book "One Hundred Years of Delaware Football."
"If one statement can be made to describe the work of Harold R. 'Tubby' Raymond," Chance wrote, "it is that is has been both consistent and consistently excellent."
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