Longtime Fresno State football coach Jim Sweeney dies at 83

Brian in Mesa

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Longtime Fresno State football coach Jim Sweeney dies at 83

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...2cbcdc-727c-11e2-b3f3-b263d708ca37_story.html

Jim Sweeney, who coached Fresno State’s football team for 19 seasons and retired with a school-record 144 victories, has died. He was 83.

The school announced Sweeney’s death on Friday night. It provided no further details.

“Most of what our football program has accomplished in recent years was clearly made possible by the path that Coach Sweeney blazed for Fresno State football throughout his two decades of leadership,” athletic director Thomas Boeh said in a statement. “He was a man of vision, toughness and character who led the Bulldogs to new heights and went on to become a national icon.”

Sweeney also coached Montana State and Washington State before he was hired by Fresno State in 1976. He retired following the 1996 season, and the field at Bulldog Stadium was renamed in his honor.
 

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Sweeney had a huge impact on college football. He started a lot of excellent coaching careers. For awhile, there was this strange Fresno St/Wazzu/Houston connection. Kind of like the way it was with ASU/Missouri in the 60s/70s.

Off the top of my head, guys who coached under him included ... Jeff Tedford, Dennis Erickson, Mike Price, Joe Tiller, Leon Burtnett (was started a lot of careers at Houston), Jack Elway, and a bunch of other guys. He and Oregon's Len Casanova were sort of like Ground Zero for West Coast coaches well into the 90s.
 
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