One of the best coaches in eastern FB.

He was a very pious and honest man: brought the Orangemen back to relevancy in the mid 80's

http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/i...rt_gallery

He was good buds with Coach Don Nehlen

He was a homer when he called games on the radio, but a great broadcaster too. Syracuse games were on the radio in metro NYC (back in the day one listened to games on the radio.)

(08-08-2017 02:52 PM)megadrone Wrote:  He was a homer when he called games on the radio, but a great broadcaster too. Syracuse games were on the radio in metro NYC (back in the day one listened to games on the radio.)

Shaking head yes....he was a homer.

BTW, you can still find it (Cuse games) on in NYC
http://am970theanswer.com/

Although tunein has pretty much radio networks irrelevant.

Wow, this is tragic.

Sorry to read this.....
RIP Coach Mac

Yup RIP.

We should have never went 1AA. Believe that was the last straw for him regarding staying at UMass.

(08-08-2017 02:48 PM)TexanMark Wrote:  One of the best coaches in eastern FB.

He was a very pious and honest man: brought the Orangemen back to relevancy in the mid 80's

http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/i...rt_gallery

He was good buds with Coach Don Nehlen

A great coach and an even better person. RIP Coach MacPherson.

I'm sorry for his passing. He did a phenomenal job for Syracuse. I almost regret that Pat Dye tied him in the Sugar Bowl.

Good guy and good coach.

RIP Coach MacPherson

That '87 Syracuse team was very good team led by the dynamic combination of coach Dick MacPherson and quarterback Don McPherson. I still remember those bastards.

They didn't really knock your socks off with their talent – they would go on to have much more talented teams under Paul Pasqualoni. However, that offense that they were running at the time was very unusual and was way ahead of its time. It was a lot like what you see today with an option base that can also throw the ball down the field. McPherson ran it to perfection. That year especially, nobody seemed to have a great answer for it. It would fit in very well with today's game.

I often think of some of the offenses for those old eastern teams and how unusual they were at the time. Boston College with Doug Flutie (who may have been the best college football quarterback I have ever seen) was basically running a spread. Syracuse ran it's offense. West Virginia with Major Harris was also very much a quarterback running offense with a throwing component. They were all way ahead of their time - but they were located in the Northeast, so nobody recognized it.

Auburn did tie them in the Sugar Bowl when Pat Dye opted for a tie at the end rather than going for the win. It was pretty chickenshit as I recall but that's not Auburn's fault. It was a stupid rule that needed to be changed 20 years prior to that game. It reminds me a lot of the clock stopping after every single first down in the current game. It's a stupid rule that is long overdue to be changed and will be changed eventually.

Sad news.

(08-08-2017 07:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  I'm sorry for his passing. He did a phenomenal job for Syracuse. I almost regret that Pat Dye tied him in the Sugar Bowl.

LOL, That burned in his crawl til the day he died.

(08-08-2017 09:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  That '87 Syracuse team was very good team led by the dynamic combination of coach Dick MacPherson and quarterback Don McPherson. I still remember those bastards.

One of the local TV idiots had a Heisman vote that year, and refused to cast it for Don McPherson because "they ran the offense through him because he's the coach's son."

(08-08-2017 09:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Auburn did tie them in the Sugar Bowl when Pat Dye opted for a tie at the end rather than going for the win. It was pretty chickenshit as I recall but that's not Auburn's fault.

Pat Dye did have the classic reply: "If Dick MacPherson wanted a national championship so bad, he should have blocked the ********* field goal."

(08-09-2017 04:20 PM)58-56 Wrote:  

(08-08-2017 09:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  That '87 Syracuse team was very good team led by the dynamic combination of coach Dick MacPherson and quarterback Don McPherson. I still remember those bastards.

One of the local TV idiots had a Heisman vote that year, and refused to cast it for Don McPherson because "they ran the offense through him because he's the coach's son."

(08-08-2017 09:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Auburn did tie them in the Sugar Bowl when Pat Dye opted for a tie at the end rather than going for the win. It was pretty chickenshit as I recall but that's not Auburn's fault.

Pat Dye did have the classic reply: "If Dick MacPherson wanted a national championship so bad, he should have blocked the ********* field goal."

Still a gutless call by Pat Dye.

He was an amazing job at Cuse. RIP

A really good read...lots of Coach Mac'isms.

http://www.syracuse.com/axeman/index.ssf...erson.html

From the UMass Football blog

Quote:Dick MacPherson has passed away. He was head coach at UMass from 1971 to 1979. His 73 games is third on the UMass all-time games coached list. He won five Yankee Conference championships and led UMass to the first FCS Championship.

The UMass administration promptly cut his scholarships the next year and he left for Syracuse where he became a Hall-of-Fame coach.

He was a great guy and boy could he tell football stories.

http://umass74.blogspot.com/

Article from Matty Vautour, UMass beat writer from the Gazzette.

Quote:As they came off the field following Tuesday’s practice, the UMass football coaches learned that former coach Dick MacPherson had died.

MacPherson is most known nationally for his tenure at Syracuse and in New England for his brief stint leading the New England Patriots.

But he coached UMass from 1971-77 and went 45-27-1 in those seven seasons. That stint included four Yankee Conference crowns and a trip to the 1972 Boardwalk Bowl in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He’s in the UMass athletic hall of fame as well as the College Football Hall of Fame.

Minuteman coach Mark Whipple said many players from that era recounted MacPherson stories at last week’s UMass football golf tournament.

“His name came up a lot two Mondays ago at the golf tournament. He touched a lot of people. Our condolences go out to his family,” Whipple said. “He was a great man. He was enthusiastic and tough. He was really good for this place.”

Detroit Lions scout Dave Uyrus, who coached with MacPherson at UMass, Syracuse and New England, coincidentally was at Tuesday’s Minuteman practice. He broke the news to Whipple.

MacPherson was at Syracuse when current UMass offensive line coach Mike Foley was an assistant coach at Colgate. He said the Red Raiders staff would often visit Syracuse practices to learn from MacPherson and his staff.

“We’d go up and watch them practice. I got to know him a little bit,” Foley said. “He was a great guy, real friendly and helpful. He did a great job a Syracuse. He was always accommodating when we’d go up there to talk football.”

Former UMass head coach Mike Hodges had a similar experience. When he was an assistant coach at Colby, its staff annually visited Amherst to take in a UMass practice and talk football.

“He made us all feel welcome and helped us become better football coaches,” said Hodges, who coached UMass from 1992-1997. “It’s a real loss. He was a good guy and a great coach. He was a real outgoing guy. He loved being around people and he loved football.”

http://www.gazettenet.com/Former-UMass-f...6-11754851

(08-09-2017 07:35 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  From the UMass Football blog

Quote:Dick MacPherson has passed away. He was head coach at UMass from 1971 to 1979. His 73 games is third on the UMass all-time games coached list. He won five Yankee Conference championships and led UMass to the first FCS Championship.

The UMass administration promptly cut his scholarships the next year and he left for Syracuse where he became a Hall-of-Fame coach.

He was a great guy and boy could he tell football stories.

http://umass74.blogspot.com/

Article from Matty Vautour, UMass beat writer from the Gazzette.

Quote:As they came off the field following Tuesday’s practice, the UMass football coaches learned that former coach Dick MacPherson had died.

MacPherson is most known nationally for his tenure at Syracuse and in New England for his brief stint leading the New England Patriots.

But he coached UMass from 1971-77 and went 45-27-1 in those seven seasons. That stint included four Yankee Conference crowns and a trip to the 1972 Boardwalk Bowl in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He’s in the UMass athletic hall of fame as well as the College Football Hall of Fame.

Minuteman coach Mark Whipple said many players from that era recounted MacPherson stories at last week’s UMass football golf tournament.

“His name came up a lot two Mondays ago at the golf tournament. He touched a lot of people. Our condolences go out to his family,” Whipple said. “He was a great man. He was enthusiastic and tough. He was really good for this place.”

Detroit Lions scout Dave Uyrus, who coached with MacPherson at UMass, Syracuse and New England, coincidentally was at Tuesday’s Minuteman practice. He broke the news to Whipple.

MacPherson was at Syracuse when current UMass offensive line coach Mike Foley was an assistant coach at Colgate. He said the Red Raiders staff would often visit Syracuse practices to learn from MacPherson and his staff.

“We’d go up and watch them practice. I got to know him a little bit,” Foley said. “He was a great guy, real friendly and helpful. He did a great job a Syracuse. He was always accommodating when we’d go up there to talk football.”

Former UMass head coach Mike Hodges had a similar experience. When he was an assistant coach at Colby, its staff annually visited Amherst to take in a UMass practice and talk football.

“He made us all feel welcome and helped us become better football coaches,” said Hodges, who coached UMass from 1992-1997. “It’s a real loss. He was a good guy and a great coach. He was a real outgoing guy. He loved being around people and he loved football.”

http://www.gazettenet.com/Former-UMass-f...6-11754851

Good take...just one small correction. Coach Mac went to the Cleveland Browns as an Asst Coach after he left UMass...then he went to Syracuse.

Coach Mac spent his summers in my small town in Maine. I would've often see him at the grocery store getting supplies to go "up ta camp". You knew him as a football coach, I knew him as a hell of a bass fisherman still had great stories though.

Sent from my XT1080 using CSNbbs mobile app