 Shaw in 1948 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1899-03-28)March 28, 1899 Mitchellville, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | March 19, 1977(1977-03-19) (aged 77) Menlo Park, California, U.S. |
| 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 Tackle all-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 anAmerican football player and coach. He was the head coach forSanta Clara University, theUniversity of California, Berkeley, theSan Francisco 49ers, theUnited States Air Force Academy and thePhiladelphia Eagles. He attended theUniversity of Notre Dame, where he became a star player onKnute Rockne'sfirst unbeaten team. He started his coaching career with one year ashead coach atNorth Carolina State and four years as a line coach atNevada inReno.
At Santa Clara, he compiled an impressive .803 record; his first two teams posted consecutiveSugar Bowl wins overLSU. After war-time service, his only team at California went 4–5–1 in1945. In1946, Shaw became the San Francisco 49ers' first head coach in the oldAll-America Football Conference (AAFC) and continued through1954; they entered theNational Football League (NFL) in from1950.
After two seasons as the first Air Force Academy varsity head coach (1956–1957), he returned to the NFL in1958 with Philadelphia. In 1960, he led the team to an NFL Championship victory against Vince Lombardi, who said of Shaw, "That right there is a good man...an honest man." He stepped down after three seasons, following their win in thechampionship game overVince Lombardi'sGreen Bay Packers; Shaw ended up being the only coach to have beaten Lombardi in a playoff game. Nicknamed "the Silver Fox", Shaw had a winning record in ten of his twelve seasons as a professional football coach while reaching the Championship Game in two different leagues and winning 62% of his games.[1]
Lawrence "Buck" Shaw was born inMitchellville,Iowa, ten miles (16 km) east ofDes Moines, to cattle ranchers Tim and Margaret Shaw. One of five children (brothers Bill, Jim, and John, and sister Mary), the family moved toStuart when Shaw was ten, wherehigh 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.
Shaw enrolled atCreighton University inOmaha in the fall of 1918 and went out forfootball; he played one game before the rest of the schedule wiped out by theflu epidemic. He transferred to theUniversity of Notre Dame in 1919. Shaw apparently lovedtrack and field competition. In fact it was track, not football that attracted him to Notre Dame. He enrolled atSouth Bend and went out for the track team. However, Shaw fell into the hands of coachKnute Rockne and became one of the greatest tackles and placekickers in Notre Dame history.
At the1921 NCAA Track and Field Championships, Shaw was 5th in theshot put, earningAll-American honors representing theNotre Dame Fighting Irish track and field team.[2]
Shaw was astarter for Rockne from1919 to1921, first atleft tackle and then in1920 and 1921 asright tackle opening holes forGeorge Gipp. He finished his playing career being selected anAll-American byFootball World Magazine. Shaw also set a record by converting 38 of 39extra points during his varsity career, a mark that stood until 1976, more than 50 years after he graduated. Shaw is a member of the all-time "Fighting Irish" football team.
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 fromAuburn University inAlabama, and another from theUniversity of Nevada in Reno.
Although he started his coaching career atNorth Carolina State in 1924, he apparently did not want to go further south to Auburn. He heard from a friend at Notre Dame who was from Nevada that American football was new out there; they'd been playingrugby before. In a 1970 interview, Shaw said, "It sounded like an interesting challenge, so I took the Nevada job as line coach."
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 atSanta Clara University by his old teammate,Clipper Smith. He was line coach under Smith from 1929 to 1935; during the first season, thestock market crashed. "I had a heck of a time getting on my feet," explained Shaw, "Santa Clara could only afford to hire us on a seasonal basis in those years, and I was working forStandard Oil when I became head coach in 1936 after Clipper resigned to go toVillanova".
Shaw's first two Bronco teams (1936 and1937) went a combined 18–1, including back-to-back wins inNew Orleans over local favoriteLSU in theSugar Bowl in January1937 and1938. 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 theArmy's physical education program on campus.
Shaw, while waiting for the professionalAll-America Football Conference to get off the ground, managed to build up theUniversity of California squad, defeating aFrankie 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.
Shaw was the San Francisco 49ers' first head coach, working with such pro luminaries as Frankie Albert,Y. A. Tittle andHugh McElhenny. In 1944 and 1945, before World War II ended, the Morabito brothers, Victor andTony, began organizing the San Francisco 49ers for entry into a new professional league, the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Shaw and his assistant,Al Ruffo, were hired by the 49ers, but then were permitted to accept a one-year contract atCalifornia when the AAFC league kickoff was delayed until 1946.
In 1946, Shaw took over the 49ers, and with the left-handedFrankie Albert leading and directing the attack, the team placed second to theCleveland Browns four times (1946–1949) in the Western Division of the AAFC. In 1950, the 49ers along with the Browns and theBaltimore Colts merged with the rival NFL.
While the Browns quickly emerged as one of the NFL's best teams and the first Colts franchise folded after one season as the league's worst, the 49ers were a solidly upper-mid-level team during their first years in the league. A rough 3–9 record in1950 was followed with records of 7–4–1 in1951, 7–5 in1952, and 9–3 in1953.[3] As coach Shaw entered the1954 campaign, his 9th season with the club, expectations of team owner Tony Morabito for a conference championship were acute.[4]
Unfortunately for Shaw and the 49ers, their1954 draft was an extremely poor one, with 1st round quarterbackBernie Faloney opting to play in Canada and only 9th round guardTed Connolly providing a significant addition to the roster.[4] After a fast start, with four wins and a tie, star halfback Hugh McElhenny was lost for the year with aseparated shoulder in a game against the Bears.[5] McElhenny had been having a sensational season, racking up 515 yards with an 8.0 average during the opening five games.[5] Without him, the gold-diggers went into an immediate tailspin, dropping four of their next five games en route to a 7–4–1 third-place finish in the NFL's Western Conference.[5]
Despite a record of 71–39–4 over his nine years as head coach of the 49ers, Buck Shaw was fired on December 13, 1954.[6] Shaw offered friendly words to his successor, ex-St. Mary's starNorman "Red" Strader: "I wish him the best of luck — and luck is what you need in this game."[7]
After his termination in San Francisco, Shaw returned to the college ranks, becoming the second varsity head football coach atAir Force Academy. As the field commander at Air Force, Shaw guided the Falcons to a 6–2–1 mark in 1956 and a 3–6–1 record in 1957.
In1958, Shaw took over a last-placePhiladelphia Eagles team and started a rebuild of his own. He immediately dealtBuck Lansford,Jimmy Harris, and a first-round draft choice to theLos Angeles Rams for 32-year-old, nine-year veteranquarterbackNorm Van Brocklin. The move proved inspired.
Shaw and Van Brocklin led the Eagles to the NFLchampionship in1960 with a 17–13 victory atFranklin Field overVince Lombardi'sGreen Bay Packers, the only time the Lombardi-era Packers lost a postseason game. The contest ended on a game-saving tackle of Green Bay'sJim Taylor inside then ten-yard line. It was made bycenter/linebacker "sixty-minute-man"Chuck Bednarik, who because of early season injuries at linebacker revived, at Shaw's request, the long-discarded concept of two-way football.
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, losing coach Lombardi expressed well wishes, stating, "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, untilDick Vermeil's victory with theSt. Louis Rams inSuper Bowl XXXIV in early 2000.
After retiring from coaching, Shaw returned toCalifornia to work for a paper products company, and spent the later years of his life inMenlo 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 andUC Davis, was played inBuck Shaw Stadium.
Shaw died of cancer on March 19, 1977, aged 77, atStanford University's Branch Convalescent Hospital.[8][9]
| 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 | WSugar | 6 | |||||
| 1937 | Santa Clara | 9–0 | WSugar | 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(Independent)(1956–1957) | |||||||||
| 1956 | Air Force | 6–2–1 | |||||||
| 1957 | Air Force | 3–6–1 | |||||||
| Air Force: | 9–8–2 | ||||||||
| Total: | 72–49–12 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| 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 toCleveland 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 | BeatGreen 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 | ||||||||||