Biography
Football has been the essence of Tom Nugent's life as player, coach, athletic director, teacher and broadcaster. And, most importantly, innovator.
He was the true father of the I-formation and the power I and developed such football creations as the typewriter huddle, the double quarterback, the shifting-I with flankers, multiple moves and a man in motion. His innovations were widely adopted by others and sometimes those new notions were temporarily credited to people who borrowed them. But the real inventor did get his due.
Recognizing all of his important and lasting contributions, Tom Nugent is the recipient of this year's National Football Foundation Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award. Nugent also possesses one of the more interesting personal life stories in football lore. The Atlanta Journal once wrote: "Sometimes when you talk to Tom Nugent, you feel as though Mike Todd is still with us." The actor Burt Reynolds played football for Nugent at Florida State before he blew out a knee in practice. After high school, the heavily recruited Reynolds was all but signed to go to Miami until Nugent talked him into a last minute visit to FSU.
"Nugent really should be in my business," Reynolds said some years later. "Either that, or he could be one of the most successful used car salesmen in the world. When he was done, I decided I didn't want to be a Hurricane after all."
Nugent had three head coach college jobs: four years at Virginia Military Institute (1949-52); six at Florida State (1953-58); and seven at Maryland (1959-65). He had a career record of 89-80-3; a .526 winning percentage. It wasn't the won-loss record that made Nugent such an important a part of college football history. It was the creativity he brought to the game.
Tom Nugent was born February 24, 1913, in Lawrence Massachusetts. He played quarterback for Ithaca College and was named small college All-America two years.
After college, he went back home and became athletic director and head football coach at the Essex Training School. Then, World War II started, and Nugent joined the Air Force and achieved captain's rank. After the war, Nugent got a job establishing the first football team at small Matthew Whaley High School in Williamsburg. Va. Nobody, not even Nugent could realize it, but that's when the I-formation gestation period began. He didn't come up with it then; that was to come down the road. But a rivalry began that was to lead to the I-formation. That first high school team went undefeated and won the state championship. They were hot copy, the team to watch in that town.
That did not sit well with William & Mary head coach Rube McCray, who was also chairman of the Williamsburg recreation board, which dictated the high school's facilities and fields. Whaley High was even forced to play one game on a sandlot.
That did not sit well with Nugent. He resigned and went elsewhere. But before he did, he told McCray that "someday, I'm going to beat your football team." Two years later, Nugent had landed the VMI job. VMI played William & Mary and got walloped, 34-6.
Nugent hung in and he told McCray he'd get him next year. He went to a lot of McCray coaching clinics to study his acclaimed William & Mary defense. McCray boasted that no one, nobody, could run off-tackle against him. Nugent figured he had to find a way. And through noodling and doodling, Nugent came up with the I-formation, four backs lined directly behind the center. Originally designed to thwart McCray's off-tackle defense, the I-formation opened up all kinds of befuddling offensive maneuvers.
The next season, Nugent, with his new formation and quarterback Jimmy Coley, met McCray and William & Mary again. Nugent's I-formation rolled up over 450 yards, almost all off-tackle, beat William & Mary 25-19. And Nugent's reputation was blossoming.
The I-formation became the talk of college football. Notre Dame's Hall of Fame coach Frank Leahy was one of several coaches who visited Nugent to learn the details of the new formation. Leahy installed the ''I': Exposed on that huge national stage, Leahy was credited with the creation, but was quick to give the credit to Nugent.
Nugent's team upset a Georgia Tech team that was preseason national championship favorite and from that VMI went on to win the Southern Conference Championship in 1951. After VMI, Nugent went to Florida State and established the Seminoles as a big time program in college football by strengthening the schedule to include major teams like Georgia Tech, Georgia. Tennessee, Florida and Miami. In 1958, FSU beat Tennessee and posted its first win over Miami. During Nugent's watch FSU went to two bowl games.
When Nugent left coaching after seven good years at Maryland, he smoothly slipped into broadcasting and became the sports director at WPLG-TV in Miami and did football for ABC-TV Sports. He also ran many football clinics. wrote the book "Football for Boys", and worked with the Orange Bowl and Florida Tech before retiring. Nugent and his wife, Peg, had nine children.
