National Football Foundation

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame announced that College Football Hall of Fame coach Grant Teaff, who was recently named Executive Director Emeritus of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), has been named the recipient of the 2016 NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award. He will be honored at the 59th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 6 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Teaff becomes the 41st recipient of the award.

“Grant Teaff has had a profound impact on college football during six decades of service to the game,” said NFF President and CEO Steve Hatchell. “From the players he coached at McMurry, Angelo State and Baylor, to the countless coaches he helped mentor through his work at AFCA and his many contributions to the game of football through his work as an NFF Board Member, he has truly helped shape some of our country’s brightest leaders. We are honored to recognize his important contributions to football at our Annual Awards Dinner in December.” 

Teaff served as the executive director of the AFCA from January 1994 until stepping into an emeritus role in February 2016. In his 22 years as executive director, he moved the AFCA office from Orlando, Fla., to Waco, Texas, increased the membership and expanded the Board of Trustees so that all AFCA members would have representation.

Teaff oversaw the expansion of AFCA’s All-America teams to represent all levels of play and the beginning of the AFCA Good Works Teams, which honors football student-athletes for exemplary community service. He also is responsible for creating the American Football Coaches Foundation to raise money for the education and personal development of every member, and he continued to expand the AFCA Convention into the largest annual gathering of coaches in the nation.

Teaff has served on the Board of Directors of the National Football Foundation since 1994, and he has remained a prominent supporter of the NFF’s mission of Building Leaders Through Football. He also serves on the boards of USA Football and the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment.

Teaff played football in Texas during the 1950s at Snyder High School, Angelo State (then San Angelo Junior College) and McMurry University (then McMurry College). He was a center and team captain at all three levels.

“I fell in love with football,” Teaff said. “At age 14, I said my life goal was to be a football coach.”

In 1960, he became the head coach at McMurry, where he would spend six years before becoming an assistant at Texas Tech from 1966-68 and the head coach at Angelo State (Texas) from 1969-71. However, it was his time as the head coach at Baylor from 1972-92 that would earn him national recognition.

When he arrived, the Bears were considering dropping out of Division I football, after winning only seven games in a five-year span. Teaff persuaded the university to hold the course, and he would lead Baylor to 128 wins in 21 seasons. He earned Southwest Conference Coach of the Year honors six times, and he received National Coach of the Year accolades from AFCA and the Football Writers Association of America. Teaff’s teams won two Southwest Conference titles, and they appeared in eight bowl games.

Teaff’s outstanding career as a college coach has placed him in eight Halls of Fame, including the College Football Hall of Fame and Texas Sports Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was honored with the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award, one of the highest honors a coach can receive from the AFCA. Teaff coached College Football Hall of Famer Rod Cason at Angelo State and Hall of Famers Thomas Everett and Mike Singletary at Baylor.