Bo McMillin

At 57 years old, Bo McMillin physical status not available right now. We will update Bo McMillin's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

McMillin played professional football in the early days of the NFL, with the Milwaukee Badgers and the Cleveland Indians. McMillin could only play on certain weeks when the team he was coaching traveled North. The Badgers had to mail him the plays and signals the week before, pay him in advance, and he never had any practice with the team.

Coaching career

Building upon his success as a player, McMillin became a coach and spent the next quarter-century compiling a 146–77–13 record. McMillin's "tactical contributions" were "both negligible," the five man backfield and the "cockeyed T."

Preferring a small school, McMillin began at Centenary College of Louisiana in 1922. Over a three-year period, he lost only three of 28 games, and won two Louisiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles.

McMillin's success in Louisiana allowed him to move on to Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where he was the school's 13th head football coach for three seasons (1925–1927). His coaching record at Geneva was 22 wins, 6 losses and 1 tie, and he is a member of the Beaver County Sports Hall of Fame. Geneva College fans generally consider McMillin among the best coaches in school history. His teams, renowned for playing some of the best teams in college football, prided themselves on a challenging schedule. Geneva opened the 1926 season with a 16–7 upset of Harvard.

Former Centre player Swede Anderson followed McMillin to Centenary and Geneva. Mack Flenniken also followed coach McMillin, as well as Cal Hubbard, the only person inducted into the Pro Football and Baseball Halls of Fame and Centenary's first All-American, at both schools. Georgia Tech coach Bill Alexander once watched Centenary when it was in Atlanta to play Oglethorpe. "Bo, this Oglethorpe bunch has fast backs, but the line is light and green. If you turn that Hubbard loose, he might kill some of them. Have Cal 'hurt his knee', why don't you, and let him sit on the bench?"

In 1928, McMillin was hired by Kansas State University to replace Hall of Fame coach Charlie Bachman. He coached successfully at Kansas State for six years, including an 8–2 season in 1931, which after a 5–0 start and Rose Bowl aspirations had the Wildcats suffer close losses to Iowa State and Nebraska. In his final season at the helm in 1933, Kansas State "had an unexpectedly fine season," including an upset of Oklahoma.

Elden Auker (McMillin's all-conference quarterback at Kansas State) wrote in his book, Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms, "McMillin was a great psychologist. He really knew how to give us talks that fired us up ... The normal routine for McMillin was to bring us out onto the field to loosen up and then take us back into the locker room for a pep talk. By the time he was through talking, we believed we could take on the world".

McMillin's success at Kansas State propelled him into his most noteworthy achievements, coaching at Indiana University for 14 years, beginning in 1934. He helped improve the nondescript program to an undefeated season in 1945. That year was the first in which the Hoosiers won the Big Nine Conference and the school's only outright conference title. McMillin received the Coach of the Year Award. "I haven't seen Blanchard," said McMillin at the award ceremony's dinner, "but until I do, I'll settle for Pete Pihos any time."

McMillin was successful at the annual College All-Star game, winning in 1938 and 1946 against the defending NFL champions.

Indiana was reportedly at another Big Ten stadium when McMillin sought entrance several hours before the game, only to find the gates locked and guarded. He coaxed the guards to open one gate so they could discuss the problem and announced, "This is the Indiana football team. We've been marching around this place long enough, and, suh, we are not wearying ourselves before we get our suits on". He is the last Indiana football coach to have left with a winning record.

Despite becoming the school's athletic director and earning apparent lifetime security, with seven years remaining on his most-recent contract the 53-year-old McMillin sought new challenges after the 1947 season. He accepted a five-year contract to coach the National Football League's Detroit Lions on February 19, 1948.

McMillin's coaching success disappeared with the Lions as the team dropped its first five games in 1948 and finished with a 2–10 record. In addition to many on-field changes, he briefly changed the team's colors from the familiar Hawaiian blue to maroon (similar to the color worn by his Indiana teams).

The Lions also struggled in 1949, with a 4–8 record, but picked up the rights to future star Doak Walker and brought in quarterback Bobby Layne and Heisman Trophy winner Leon Hart the following year. Continued conflict with players led to McMillin's departure after the end of the 1950 NFL season, which saw the Lions finish with a 6–6 record.

He then took up the challenge of returning the Philadelphia Eagles to their previous glory when he was hired on February 8, 1951, succeeding Earle (Greasy) Neale. After two games, both victories, McMillin underwent surgery for what was thought to be stomach ulcers. The findings were far worse: stomach cancer, which ended his coaching career. On March 31, 1952, McMillin died of a heart attack; his funeral was attended by many fellow coaches and former players.

Source