Countdown to 2023 Enshrinement: Don Coryell

Enshrinement Published on : 7/27/2023
By Evan Rogers
Pro Football Hall of Fame

(Second in a series of features on the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023)

Before DON CORYELL'S famed “Air Coryell” offense could take the football world by storm, he was stationed on the opposite side of the ball.

In college at the University of Washington, Coryell played defensive back. Lettering his senior year, he excelled on the football field and in the boxing ring, where he won two university light-heavyweight titles.

While pursuing a graduate degree at Washington, Coryell served as a student assistant under head coach Howard Odell. Upon graduation, Coryell took his first full-time coaching job as an assistant at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

A year later, Coryell was offered his first head coaching job across town at Farrington High School, a program fresh off a winless season. In his lone year at the helm, Coryell led the Governors to a 2-5-2 record.

“I have always done the best job possible,” Coryell said in an interview later. “I survived a lot of tough times. I'm very proud of that.”

Coryell would move back to Washington a couple years later to coach at Wenatchee Junior College. Comfortable in his home state, Coryell’s coaching career took flight.

The savvy young coach led the Knights to a 7-1-1 record, marking Coryell’s first winning season as a head coach. The following year — now at Fort Ord Military School in California — Coryell engineered a perfect 9-0 season and won a service football crown. 

Over the next four years, Coryell would spend three of them coaching Whittier College to a trio of conference titles before being hired as an assistant at Southern California. After one season on staff with the Trojans, he was offered the head coaching job at San Diego State.

There Coryell inherited a program that had failed to reach a bowl game for eight consecutive years. Early on at SDSU, Coryell placed an emphasis on the run with his “IT” formation, a blend of the I and T run formations that is known as the “Power I” today. During his first five seasons, Coryell won multiple conference titles and hired future Hall of Famers John Madden and Joe Gibbs to his staff. 

By 1966, Coryell shifted his offensive focus to the passing game with quarterback Don Horn as signal caller. That year, San Diego State went a perfect 11-0 and was voted the top-ranked small college by the Associated Press. 

“(Coryell) is just about the only coach I know who isn’t locked into the philosophy that you have to establish a running game first to make a passing attack work,” former SDSU defensive end Fred Dryer said about his coach at the time. “He figures that if you establish your passing game, the running game will go.”

By the end of his 12-year tenure with San Diego State, Coryell had accumulated a 104-19-2 record and coached mor than 50 players who reached the NFL. Coryell would join the professional ranks when he was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973.

After a rocky 4-9-1 season his first year, Coryell would turn things around over the next three seasons and lead St. Louis to a pair of playoff appearances.

"I created the pressure for me,” Coryell said. “I have the worst case of tunnel vision I have ever seen. I can block out everything.”

Coryell would return to San Diego, this time to coach the Chargers, after five seasons with the Cardinals.

With the Chargers, Coryell’s offensive scheme was put on full display with Hall of Fame quarterback DAN FOUTS running the show. The two-tight end formation featured only one back and thrived on deep passing attempts. Despite having run the system for years, “Air Coryell” came fully alive with the Chargers. 

“’Air Coryell’ changed the game on both sides of the ball,” Fouts said. “One cannot write the history of the National Football League without the contributions of Coach Coryell."

During his time with the Chargers, Coryell’s offense led the league in passing seven of eight years, and San Diego would reach the playoffs four times. Coryell finished his professional coaching career with a 111-83-1 record, becoming the first (and still only) head coach to win more than 100 games in college and the NFL.

While Coryell’s playing days at defensive back consisted of him trying to stop opposing teams from passing the ball, his coaching career allowed him to transform the passing attack into its modern form.

“Don Coryell has had a tremendous influence on the game we know and love today,” Chargers owner Dean Spanos said. "Whether it was through the coaches he mentored, the players he taught and led, the offenses he orchestrated or the defenses that were created to stop his offenses, today's NFL is a direct reflection of Don's mind and imagination.”

Evan Rogers is a student at the University of North Carolina and is an intern this summer at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


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