By Dan Lathey
 
It has now been just past the century mark since Earl Henry Blaik graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. It has also been more than 60 years since the man who become famously known to the sporting world as "Red" and later "the Colonel" guided the Army Black Knights to a perfect 8-0-1 record in what would be his last season of a hall of fame coaching career.
 
Blaik played football and graduated from Miami University (Ohio) before being admitted to the USMA in 1918, during a period in which the academy was addressing a need for officers due to World War I. His time at West Point was impactful, with Blaik earning All-American honors in football as well as being named the academy's outstanding athlete as a first classmen (senior). Blaik also made an impression on then brigadier general and academy superintendent Douglas MacArthur. The two men would become close friends and confidants for the rest of their lives. 
 
After graduating from the academy in 1920, Blaik began a path that would ultimately led back to West Point and an extraordinary coaching career that would leave an indelible mark on college football history in general and Army football history in particular.
 
Fresh off his commission as a second lieutenant, Blaik was assigned to the 1st Calvary Division at Fort Bliss, Texas. He would resign from the Army in 1922 to join his father in the real estate business in Ohio but found his true calling a couple of years later when he accepted an unpaid assistant coaching position at Wisconsin under George Little, whom he had played for at Miami. From those humble beginnings, Blaik returned to Army as an assistant coach in 1927 before accepting the head coaching position at Dartmouth in 1934. 
 
Blaik went 35-14-4 in seven seasons at Dartmouth before returning to Army in 1941 to take over a program that had complied a lowly 4-11-3 record over the previous two seasons. Blaik was the perfect fit at West Point and his innovative style, strong worth ethic and knack for hiring talented assistant coaches led to the golden era for Army football.
 
In 18 seasons as Army head coach, Blaik guided the Black Knights to two AP national championships (1944-45) while three of his players would earn the Heisman Trophy (Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis and Pete Dawkins). He suffered only one losing season and guided the Black Knights to six undefeated campaigns during his lengthy tenure, finishing with a 121-33-10 career record. In his last season as head coach in 1958 he directed the team to its last undefeated season and No. 3 ranking in the final Associated Press poll. 
 
Legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi was the most famous product of Blaik's coaching tree but there many other assistants who went on to stellar coaching careers. Included in this list are two assistants who led their teams to AP National Championships as head coaches; Paul Dietzel at LSU in 1958 and Muarry Warmath at Minnesota in 1960.
 
Other assistants who went on to coaching acclaim at the collegiate level were Tom Cahill (Army), Herman Hickman (Yale) and Southwest Conference legend Bill Yeoman (Houston). Another assistant, Sid Gilliam, was the first head coach and general manager of the Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers. He led the high-flying Chargers to five division titles and the 1963 AFL title and like Lombardi, is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
 
Colonel Blaik and his wife Merle had two sons, Bill and Bob, both of whom had highly successful careers in the oil and gas business. Bob, who played football for his father at Army, was an assistant football coach at three stops before joining his older brother in the oil business in the early 60s. He is now 93 years old and in good health. Bill Blaik passed away in 2008.
 
Although his list of accomplishments is too long to list, it is worth noting that Blaik enshrined at the NFF College Football Hall of Fame and Army Sports Hall of Fame and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Colonel Blaik and General MacArthur played vital roles in the founding of the National Football Foundation along with fabled sports writer Grantland Rice. After his passing in 1989, Blaik was buried at West Point Cemetery.
 
Blaik's legacy lives on in the annals of Army and college football history and is a point of pride for his three grandsons, all of whom live in the Oklahoma City area.
 
Will Blaik, an attorney and former law enforcement officer, and the son of Shirley and Bill Blaik says that the example that his grandfather set still reverberates in the family.
 
"I am the youngest of the male grandchildren so I was not able to spend a lot of my mature years with grand dad but he did instill the ideals of integrity, collaboration and sacrifice into me, my family and the game in general," Blaik said. "These words seem to be thrown around a lot, but I still use them to describe the character of my family and the soul of the game."
 
Bill Blaik, a long-time cattleman and son of Jane and Bob Blaik, says that the passion for coaching was passed on from his grandfather to his father.
 
"I believe my father always wanted to be a coach. He was a real student of sports in general. Football, hockey and baseball are his favorites and later in life it was golf," Bill Blaik began. 
 
"Prior to coaching football at the University of Oklahoma (under Bud Wilkinson) he was an assistant coach at the University of Miami (Fla.) (under Andy Gustafson) and before that at the University of Minnesota (under Warmath). Gustafson and Warmath were former assistant coaches under Red's tutelage. With a growing family and his father and brother already in the oil and gas business, it made sense for him to join them. My father has very good people skills and his sincere mannerisms seem to be infectious to those that know him."
 
Bill Blaik says that his grandfather's legacy is unique and considering the manner in which Army football embraces tradition it will never go away.
 
"The field at Michie Stadium is named after my grandfather and there is a very nice football gallery in his name as well.  As long as football is played at West Point there will be a connection with our family, we are talking about it now, 60 some odd years after he coached his final season," Bill Blaik said.
 
When asked about what might not be as well known about the well-chronicled life of his grandfather, Blaik said that the Colonel was respected and in turn, treated those around him with respect.
 
"He was a very loving and caring husband, father and grandfather. His loyalty to West Point, his players, assistant coaches, and friends was unwavering. On several occasions I was able to witness the reciprocation of how much former players, coaches and friends respected him. He was an avid reader and firmly believed in the written word as a necessity to communicate.  He was very self-disciplined, had a great sense of humor, and a manner about him that is difficult to describe, but yet you always knew where you stood with him," Bill Blaik began.
 
He concluded with a quote he attributes to a legend in his own right and the colonel's close friend, Bob Knight.
 
Knight said, "When Colonel Blaik would walk into a room, without ever saying a word, everybody knew he was there, and everybody was conscious of him as long as he stayed there.  He had a presence about him that exceeded any I've ever seen."
 
There was no one quite like Red Blaik in the history of college football. Those that knew him best during his incredible life and career are thankful for that fact.