Former NFL coach Jack Pardee dies at 76
He was 76.
In November, Pardee's family announced that he had gall bladder cancer that had spread to other organs and that he had six to nine months to live. The family has established a memorial scholarship fund in Pardee's name at the University of Houston, where Pardee coached from 1987-89.
"Today, we mourn the passing of a great man who dedicated his life to the game of football and was a true gentleman in every sense of the word," Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades said.
"It was not a coincidence that success followed coach and his teams wherever he worked, and the University of Houston program was blessed to have him lead our football program during some of our most exciting times."
Pardee was born in Iowa and moved to west-central Texas as a teenager.
He played six-man football at Christoval High School before moving on to Texas A&M. Bryant became the Aggies' coach in 1954 and moved their preseason camp to desolate Junction, about 100 miles northwest of San Antonio.
The state endured a severe drought and an historic heat wave that year, but Bryant worked his team through the brutal conditions and refused to allow water breaks in an effort to toughen players. Pardee was one of 35 players who made it through to the end of the 10-day camp without quitting.
"Not only did we lose a Texas A&M legend today, we lost a man who was a legend at every level of football," Texas A&M athletics director Eric Hyman said in a statement.
Pardee played three seasons at Texas A&M and was the 14th overall pick in the 1957 NFL draft by Los Angeles. He played for the Rams from 1957-64, sat out a year to deal with melanoma, and played seven more seasons. He finished his playing career with the Washington Redskins in 1973 and coached the team from 1978-80.
"In his time both on the field and on the sideline, Jack Pardee will forever be a part of the Washington Redskins' legacy," owner Daniel Snyder said in a statement.
"He will be remembered not just as a linebacker for the 1972 NFC Champions, nor as just the coach for our franchise. He will be remembered as someone whose spirit truly embodied the values that we associate with the burgundy and gold."
Before the NFL, Pardee coached in the World Football League. He was the Bears' head coach from 1975-77 and guided Chicago to its first playoff appearance since the early 1960s. Pardee moved to the Redskins in 1978, while the Bears made the postseason again in 1979.
"The Bears family was saddened to hear of Jack Pardee's passing," Bears chairman George McCaskey said in a statement. "Coach Pardee's time with us was only three seasons, but he made an impact by ending a 14-year playoff drought in 1977."
He coached Walter Payton, Doug Buffone and Wally Chambers when he was with the Bears.With Washington he coached Billy Kilmer, John Riggins, Joe Theismann, Jake Scott, Ken Houston, Chris Hanburger, Dave Butz, Art Monk, Jeff Bostic, Fred Dean, Mike Nelms, Don Warren, Mark Murphy, Lemar Parrish, Billy Kilmer, Ron Saul and Mark Moseley while coaching for owner Jack Kent Cooke and general manager Bobby Beathard.
Pardee got his first head coaching job with the Washington Ambassadors. The team later relocated to Norfolk, Virginia as the Virginia Ambassadors before finally moving to their third and final home in Orlando as the Florida Blazers. The Blazers made it to the 1974 World Bowl and lost by one point to the Birmingham Americans. Pardee's regular-season coaching record in 1974 with the Blazers was 14–6, and 2–1 in the 1974 WFL Playoffs and World Bowl. This was all the more remarkable considering that the Blazers went unpaid for the last three months of the season. Some of the Blazers players relocated to San Antonio as the Wings for the 1975 season, and Pardee also moved on, signing on as head coach of the Chicago Bears for the 1975 season.
The Redskins fired Pardee after Washington went 6-10 in 1980. He served as San Diego's defensive coordinator for one season, then returned to Texas to coach the USFL's Houston Gamblers.
In 1984, Pardee returned to his native Texas by becoming the head coach of the Houston Gamblers. The Gamblers played spring football in the United States Football League. The Gamblers had one of the most potent offenses in pro football, the run and shoot offense, with Jim Kelly as quarterback. The Gamblers merged with the New Jersey Generals in 1986, and Pardee was named head coach. With Kelly and Doug Flutie both vying for the role of starting quarterback, and Herschel Walker in the backfield, the Generals were poised to dominate the USFL, but the league folded prior to the 1986 season.
When the USFL disbanded in 1987, Pardee became the coach at the University of Houston and brought along the fast-paced "run-and-shoot" offense that worked well with the Gamblers.
The NCAA levied severe sanctions on the program in 1988, the result of violations committed under previous coach Bill Yeoman. Houston was banned from playing in a bowl game for two years and banned from playing on television in the 1989 season.
But the Cougars led the nation in total offense (624.9 yards per game) and passing offense (511 yards per game) in 1989, and quarterback Andre Ware became the first black quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy. Houston finished 9-2 and ranked No. 14 in the nation.
He continued his coaching career in the Canadian Football League. In 1995, he was named head coach of the Birmingham Barracudas. Canadian football is somewhat more wide-open than American football, and owner Art Williams thought Pardee's roots in the six-man game made him a natural fit. The "Cudas" were part of a failed experiment to expand the CFL into the United States. With Matt Dunigan at quarterback, Birmingham made the playoffs, but lost in the first round. However, due to dreadful attendance late in the season and the league's refusal to approve the team's proposed relocation to Shreveport, Louisiana for 1996, the 'Cudas were shuttered at the end of the season along with the CFL's other American teams.
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