Clark Shaughnessy
Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Football Coach, 1915-26
Tulane University
Inducted: 1973
Clark Shaughnessy established himself as a legendary football coach at both Tulane and Loyola in New Orleans before moving on to the University of Chicago and Stanford University where he built his reputation even further. He became known as the “father of the T formation” and is often credited with being the driving force behind making the forward pass a potent weapon in the arsenal of college football offenses.
A Minnesota native, Shaughnessy coached at Tulane University for 11 years (1915-26), compiling a record of 57 wins, 28 loses and seven ties. After setting a school record for wins in an 8-1 campaign in 1924, Shaugnessy’s Green Wave posted a perfect 9-0 record in the 1925 – amazingly, the team turned down a Rose Bowl bid. Shaughnessy also coached the Tulane basketball team for three years (1915-18) and posted a 27-15 record.
Shaughnessy departed Tulane to take over the nearby Loyola football program for six years (1927-32) compiling a record of 38-16-6 before heading to the University of Chicago.
While he struggled in seven years at Chicago with a 17-34-4 record, he was still a much sought-after coach, declining overtures from both Ohio State and Harvard. When Chicago disbanded its football program following the 1939 season, Shaughnessy was the surprise choice to take over a Stanford program which had fallen on hard times.
Taking over a team that had posted a 1-7-1 record in 1939, Shaughnessy implemented his most ambitious use of the T-formation immediately with Stanford. The team shocked the world with a perfect 9-0 record, the Pacific Coast Conference Championship and a victory over No. 7 Nebraska in the 1941 Rose Bowl.
Shaughnessy only stayed two years at Stanford before coaching Maryland for one season (1942) and Pitt (1943-45) before a stint in the NFL. He returned to college for one year at Maryland (1946) and then spent time as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Rams and the Chicago Bears.
Shaughnessy was both on march 6, 1892, in St. Cloud, Minn., and he died on May 15, 1970, at the age of 78 in Santa Monica, Calif. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
