Legendary Linfield coach dies
Jun 26, 2007 McMinnville N-R/News-Register from staff and
wire reports
HONOLULU -
Legendary Linfield College football coach Paul Durham died Friday night at his
home in Honolulu. He was 93.Durham's 1956 team started the string of 51 consecutive winning seasons that continues to this day and is college football's national record for all divisions.
He was
Linfield's head football coach for 20 seasons, compiling a 122-51-10 record for
a .694 winning percentage. In his final 12 years, "Once I got the hang of
it," he said, the Wildcats went 90-16-6 (.830), won six Northwest Conference
championships and reached the national championship game of the NAIA twice.
Durham took
over the athletic director position at the University of Hawaii in 1968. He
held that position until he stepped down in 1975 for health reasons.
Durham, who
also served as the sports editor for the News-Register for several years while
coaching the Wildcats, said the thing he is most proud of is the type of
players he was able to recruit to represent Linfield.
"You have
to have good people," he said at a luncheon in his honor at Linfield in
2005. "A lot of them have done wonderful things after college. I claim a
lot of them as my sons."
Durham said he
stayed in touch with quite a few of his former players.
"A lot of
them come to Hawaii and we have lunch and tell a few lies," he said.
"I'm lucky that way."
Durham was a
star athlete at Linfield in the 1930s, competing in football, basketball and
track and field, and is one of the few Wildcats in history to earn 10 letters.
He received a
small scholarship to attend Linfield as the nation sank into the Great
Depression. He earned a free room by working at the original Macy's Funeral
Home in McMinnville.
"I shared
a bed with another football player," Durham said. "In those days, two
guys sleeping in the same bed did not raise any eyebrows."
Durham was a
jack of all trades in McMinnville. He did everything - from coaching the
Linfield football team to writing for the McMinnville News-Register to singing
every Sunday morning in the First Baptist Church. He wrote a popular column
"Dodging with Durham" while with the News-Register.
"I don't
know how I became sports editor of the News-Register," Durham said.
"I always enjoyed writing, took a journalism class in high school, and
wanted Linfield sportsmen's names in the paper. I always knew people enjoy
seeing their name in print, even me, and that led to the column, built on
names. I don't remember writing in high school or college in the school paper,
but I may have.
"When I
started writing the column in the N-R, (publisher) Phil Bladine, a good friend
of mine, named it 'Shooting the Bull.' After a bit, some readers started adding
a word to it in their minds, and we decided we had to get a new name. Bladine
suggested 'Dodging with Durham,' which was fine with me."
One observer
opined that Durham might have been the only college football coach in America
who was never criticized in print by the local sports editor.
During summers,
he ran the McMinnville city recreation program - overseeing activities in the
city park during the day and softball games at night.
Well-known for
his singing prowess, Durham also taught music early in his career as a coach at
Yamhill High School.
In a Letter to
the Editor (New-Register, May 26, 2007) Yamhill resident Gordon Dromgoole wrote,
"During 1940, (Durham) also directed "The Mikado" put on by the
school. My uncle, Gordon Zimmerman, was a junior and played the lead. Coach
Durham told him, 'You can't make a basket, but you sure can sing!'
"I'm sure
most people aren't aware of coach Durham's theatrical talents because he was
such a great coach, but many in Yamhill remember him as a multitalented asset
to the community."
In town for the
Linfield Hall of Fame banquet in November 2005, Durham received two standing
ovations.
"I've led
a wonderful life, worked with great cohorts and around terrific students, and
wouldn't change anything," he said. "How about that? Sounds like I
could have been a preacher."
Durham said he
appreciated the way the people of McMinnville treated him and wanted them to
know that Mac would always have a special place in his heart.
"Thank you
for being so nice to me and my family while I went to college here from 1932 to
1936 and when I lived here after that for 20 wonderful years," he said.
"I was lucky."
"Coach"
is survived by three children, Jeff of Tigard, Terry of Beaverton and Cathy
Devine of Chicago; seven grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren (with two
more on the way) and more friends and admirers than ever could be counted.
