Carm Cozza's Legacy to be Celebrated at Miami
10/20/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 20, 2010
OXFORD, Ohio -- The Miami University's Cradle of Coaches Plaza project begins to culminate this Saturday (Oct. 23) when the first three of eight unique statues celebrating the storied history of RedHawk football will be unveiled at 12 noon in a public ceremony at Yager Stadium.
CARM COZZA and PAUL DIETZEL, two of the eight legends who will eventually be immortalized in the outdoor shrine at the south end of Yager, will return to Miami's campus for a special Friday night function and Saturday' unveiling, while deceased Pro Football Hall of Famer WEEB EWBANK will be represented by his widow, Lucy.
The public is invited to attend the special Friday evening reception and dinner (Oct. 22) honoring the three luminaries at Miami University's Shriver Center. Tickets are available for $40 each. The reception at Shriver's Multi-Purpose Room begins at 5 p.m., with dinner following at 5:30 p.m..
To order tickets, call (513) 529-8097.
Those attending the Oct. 23 Miami home football game against the Ohio Bobcats are invited to arrive early for the 12 p.m. inauguration of the three statues. They will also be introduced to the Yager Stadium crowd during the game.
Today, MURedHawks.com profiles the great Carm Cozza. Yesterday, Weeb Ewbank was featured. On Thursday, the spotlight will be on Paul Dietzel.
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Yale University has been playing American Football since the rules for the game were written in the late 1800's.
Walter Camp, known as the "The Father of American Football," played for the Bulldogs from 1876-1882 and coached the team from 1888-1892, winning three national championships. The Yale-Harvard game has been played since 1875, making it the second-oldest continuing rivalry in college football and the Bulldogs are just one of a handful of teams in college football with more than 800 wins all-time.
Of all of the coaches who oversaw the Yale football program, it is Miami graduate and "Cradle of Coaches" member Carmen "Carm" Cozza who stands at the top. Cozza mentored the Bulldogs from 1965-1996. His 32 seasons are the most of any Yale coach by 20 years. His 179 career wins are well over twice the number of wins of any other coach in the school's history.
Jack Siedlecky, Cozza's successor and Camp are second and third on the wins list with 70 and 67, respectively.
Yale's coaches are often graded on their ability to win the Yale-Harvard rivalry game. Cozza managed to finish 16-15-1 against the Bulldogs' bitter rivals.
Before all of the success in New Haven, Cozza's career started at Miami University. Cozza was born in Parma, Ohio, and grew up playing football and baseball. After high school, he came to Miami as a two-sport star. Recruited by Sid Gillman, Cozza played quarterback, halfback and safety for the Red and White on the gridiron under Woody Hayes and Ara Parseghian and was an outfielder and pitcher for the baseball team.
His accomplishments as an athlete make for an impressive list. He once recorded four interceptions in one football game, which is still tied for second-most in Miami's record book. The Miami football teams were a combined 21-8 in the three years Cozza was on the team. In those years, Miami lost just two Mid-American Conference games, winning the conference title and defeating Arizona State in the Salad Bowl in 1950.
On the baseball diamond, he had a career batting average of .388 and ERA of 1.50, and threw a no-hit shutout his senior year. After graduating in 1952, Cozza played minor league baseball for two years in the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox organizations before moving on to coaching.
In 1954 and '55 he coached the high school football teams at Gilmour Academy and Collinwood in Cleveland.
True to the "Cradle of Coaches" name, Miami soon called Cozza back to Oxford in 1956. He returned as an assistant football coach on his former college roommate, John Pont's, staff. Cozza helped Pont's Miami teams to a 43-22-2 record from 1956-'62. Those teams won back-to-back MAC titles in '57 and '58.
When Pont left Miami in 1963 to take over as head football coach at Yale, Cozza joined him as an assistant on both sides of the ball. Just two years later, Pont moved on to Indiana University and Cozza was named 31st head coach at Yale in 1965. Over the next 32 seasons, Cozza stood on the sidelines for the Bulldogs. His teams won or shared the Ivy League title 11 times, including a stretch from 1974-1981 when Yale won the conference title seven out of eight years. In 14 of his 32 years, his teams lost just two or fewer games, and in 1968, his Bulldogs were undefeated.
Just as impressive as his teams' athletic accomplishments were the academic feats of his players. All but seven of the 2,000-plus student-athletes who played for Cozza at Yale graduated. During his tenure, he coached 35 All-Americans and seven Rhodes Scholars and five National Football Foundation Scholar-Athletes.
When Cozza retired after the 1996 season, his career record stood at 179-119-5. His 179 wins ranked 12th among Division I coaches all-time at the time and are still most among Yale coaches. His 32 years at Yale are the most of any coach at the institution.
The American Football Coaches Association named him District Coach of the Year seven times. He coached 13 future NFL players, including Dick Jauron, who would go on to become a head coach in the NFL.
Cozza was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002, the eighth Miamian to be inducted. He was named to the Miami Athletic Hall of Fame in 1970.
To view the MIAMI MEMORY vignette about Carm Cozza, CLICK HERE
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