Corny Story: A Coaching Giant’s Humble Beginning

In 1952, at 37, hopes of becoming a college football coach were fading fast for Dave Kaiser’s high school coach in Alpena, Mich., Robert S. Devaney.

Born in Saginaw, Mich., Bob Devaney had worked three years in a foundry to earn tuition to tiny, nearby Alma College, where he’d captained the football team, graduating in 1939.

Then there were high school coaching jobs at Big Beaver, Keego Harbor and Saginaw, before Alpena.

By then, Devaney was giving serious thought to becoming a high school administrator.

But 10 years later, Devaney would be hired as coach at Nebraska to turn around a football program that had suffered 17 losing seasons in the previous 21.

No one knew it at the time, but the Cornhusker dynasty was beginning.

Sandwiched between Alpena and Lincoln were four years as an assistant at Michigan State and five as head coach at Wyoming, where his teams were 35-10-5.

Devaney’s first year at Nebraska, the Cornhuskers went 9-2 and beat Miami in the Gotham Bowl.

He was described as “a fiery bulldog who had the persona to affect and inspire everyone around him. And to win.”

In 11 years as Nebraska’s coach, his teams went 101-20-2, won eight Big Eight titles and national championships in 1970 and 1971, when he was named college football’s coach of the year.

His overall winning percentage of .806 on a record of 136-30-11 is 10th best in the history of NCAA Division I football

In 1981, Devaney was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

“Bob was probably the most important coach ever at Nebraska,” said his handpicked successor, Tom Osborne, the school’s winningest coach and now a congressman from the state’s third district.