I've said in the past that Minnesota is a more accomplished "Cradle of Coaches" than Miami of Ohio has been. And in light of that, I must ask...
How is it that no one has even mentioned the base of the Gopher coaching Tree, the foundation of basically all of the Gopher's football glory throughout the last 100-120 years...
Henry L Williams!!!
He led the Gophers to the #1 winning percentage of an entire decade, 1910-1919, which included 2 unrecognized Natl Titles in 1911 and 1915, and possibly the best Gopher team in all of history, the 1916 "Immortals", and for sure the best 1 loss team EVER. I focus on his 2nd decade as Gopher Head Football Coach because the first decade already gets a lot of attention for the 1903 & 1904 seasons, both unrecognized Natl Championship seasons.
Gil Dobie, whom others have mentioned, was one of his players. And outside of his 58-0-3 record at Washington, his first gig was 2 undefeated seasons, and his 3rd gig was 3 straight 1 loss seasons coaching Navy, followed by 3 straight undefeated seasons and back to back Natl Titles at Cornell.
Ossie Solem was one of his players and I have a book that lists Solem as a Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame Coach. He won 162 cfb games and went 44-7-3 coaching the Mpls Marines. UMn has produced MORE than 2% of the Head coaches in NFL History, but they only go back to 1920. Solem coached the Mpls Marines from 1913 to 1920, but they didn't join the NFL until 1921, the year after Solem left. IF Solem's pro win/loss record was included, he would have been the WINNINGEST former Gopher pro football coach, having a better win/loss percentage than Bud Grant, Clark Shaughnessy and Tony Dungy.
Clark Shaughnessy was one of his players and not only ended up in the Cfb Hall of Fame as a coach, he was nominated multiple times for the PRO Football Hall of Fame with only 2 seasons as a coach of a Pro Football team. If you are a big football buff and like reading about how the game has changed over the years, and are a Gopher fan, too, then you really should look him up and read up about his influence on the game at both the college and professional level.
And of course Bernie Bierman was one of his players, too. William's former players basically MADE Tulane University's football program with Shaughnessy running their program for several years, then bringing in Bierman as one of his assistants, then Bierman taking over for him when he left, then another former Gopher taking over for Bierman, Ted Cox, and then a former Tulane player, one of Bierman's former Tulane players and a former Bierman Asst Coach at Minnesota, Red Dawson taking over for Cox. Those 4 coaches were responsible for every ranked season in Tulane's history, including 2 unrecognized Titles won while Bierman was the coach. Clark S, BB, Cox and Dawson are 4 of the 5 winningest coaches in Tulane's history. From there Bierman went to Minnesota and we all know the rest of his story.
But one thing some may not know about Bierman was that CBSSportsline.com named Bernie Bierman their B1G Conference Coach of the 20th Century. And one of Bierman's Gopher players ended up being named their National Coach of the 20th Century, Bud Wilkinson.
Other players of Bierman's were Bud Grant, Dave Skrien & Butch Larson who combined went to 10 Grey Cup Title Games, winning 5 of them. And Dave Skrien replaced another former Gopher Wayne Robinson at his first CFL Head Coaching gig.
Other players of Bierman's were Cal Stoll & Milt Bruhn, already mentioned above and Joe Salem as well. There are actually several more I could mention if I looked for my list I made up a few years ago.
Now continuing with the Coaching Tree, players of Cal Stoll were Tony Dungy, an NFL HOF Coach of course & Marc Trestman who continued the Gopher tradition of kicking tail in the CFL winning 3 Grey Cup Titles in 4 trips to the Title game, SO FAR.
So... The Henry L Williams/Gopher Coaching tree spans 100-120 years and I left out several coaches, most notably Biggie Munn, who didn't play for Bierman as someone mentioned above, but he did play for the Gopher's and he coached UNDER Bierman at Minnesota.
