Biography
Coach Buddy Teevens, who headed the football programs at Dartmouth, Stanford, Tulane, and Maine, was posthumously honored as the 2024 recipient of the NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award during the 66th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas at the Bellagio Resort & Casino.
Teevens, who quarterbacked Dartmouth to the 1978 Ivy League title before a 44-year coaching career, suffered life altering injuries during a bicycling accident in March 2023 before passing away on Sept. 19, 2023. He was 66.
Teevens became nationally known for his methods to protect players from concussions, instituting a ban on tackling during practice starting in 2010. He continued to pioneer safety innovations in 2015 when collaborated with students at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering to develop the Mobile Virtual Player (MVP), the world's first robotic tackling dummy. MVPs have become widely used by high schools, colleges, and NFL teams as well as adaptations used by the military, significantly reducing concussions.
Teevens played an instrumental role in launching the famed Manning Passing Academy in 1996, going on to serve as an associate director at the camp for 25 years and overseeing all aspects of the on-field operations until his injury in 2023. In 2018, he organized the camp's first clinic for women coached by women. Afterwards, he hired Callie Brownson, who was one of the coaches at the clinic, as an offensive quality control coach at Dartmouth, making her the first full-time female Division I coach in college football history.
Teevens continued to hire female coaches, welcoming six female coaches to his staff during his tenure at Dartmouth. His vision to hire women changed the landscape at all levels, including the NFL where, in 2020 with the Cleveland Browns, Brownson became the first woman in history to coach a position group during a game.
A head football coach for more than 30 years, including two stints at Dartmouth equaling 22 years in total, Teevens, launched his head coaching career at Maine from 1985-86. He landed the top job at his alma mater in 1987, beginning his first tour with the Big Green, which ran from 1987-91 and included a share of the Ivy League title in 1990 and the outright crown the following year. He left Hanover for the top jobs at Tulane (1992-1996) and Stanford (2002-04) with stops in between as an assistant at Illinois (1997-98) and Florida (1999-2001) under Hall of Fame coach Steve Spurrier.
He returned to head the Big Green program in 2005, leading the team to a share of the Ivy League crown in 2015, 2019, and 2021. While at Dartmouth, Teevens was honored as the New England Coach of the Year three times, in 1990, 2015, and 2019, and Ivy League Coach of the Year in 2019 and 2021. All told, he led Dartmouth to five conference titles and a 117-101-2 record, including 83-70-1 in the Ivy League, making him the Big Green's all-time winningest coach.
Born October 1, 1956, and a native of Pembroke, Massachusetts, Teevens earned an A.B. degree in history from Dartmouth in 1979. He starred on the football team, claiming the Asa S. Bushnell Cup as the Ivy League Player of the Year in 1978 after leading the Big Green to the Ivy League title. He earned All-America honorable mention laurels that year while being named the ECAC Player of the Year. He also lettered in hockey, helping take Dartmouth to a third-place finish at the 1979 NCAA championship. He was voted the Alfred W. Watson Trophy as Dartmouth's outstanding athlete as a senior. He is just one of three Ivy Leaguers to win a conference crown as a player and a head coach.
On May 18, 2024, more than 1,500 of his family members, former players, teammates, classmates, and fans gathered on Memorial Field at Dartmouth to celebrate his life, and Dartmouth announced the facility would be renamed as the Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field, which officially occurred Oct. 5 during the Big Green's Ivy League home opener against Penn. The College also established the Kirsten and Eugene F. "Buddy" Teevens '79 Scholarship Fund in his honor.
