Legendary Yale Football Coach Passes Away

NEW HAVEN, CT — Carmen Cozza, who served as head football coach at Yale University for more than three decades and is the winningest coach in Ivy League history, passed away Thursday morning. He was 87.

A 2002 inductee into the College Football Hall of Fame, Cozza won nearly 60 percent of his games as head coach, a tenure which began in 1965 after two years as an assistant coach. His record of 179 victories as head coach is 11 more than current Harvard head coach Tim Murphy.

Yale won 10 Ivy League championships under Cozza, and compiled a 16-game winning streak from 1967 to 1968.

The Ohio native played football and baseball at Miami University, playing quarterback for a pair of fellow College Football Hall of Fame coaches, Ara Parseghian and Woody Hayes. He played minor league baseball in the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox organizations before devoting himself exclusively to the gridiron.

He coached at Miami from 1956 to 1963, when he left for an assistant coaching position at Yale. Two years later, he assumed the head coaching duties.

In 1976, Cozza received the prestigious Gold Key Award from the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance. He last attended the annual dinner in 2015, when former Yale standout running back John Pagliaro was honored.

Since retiring from the sidelines in 1996, Cozza served as Special Assistant to the Director of Athletics at Yale, while also handling radio color commentary for Bulldogs football from 1998 to 2016. He worked at Yale for a total of 54 years.

He is survived by his wife, Jean Cozza of Orange, three daughters and sons-in-law and five grandchildren.

Yale sports publicity director Steven Conn said funeral services will be private, and a memorial celebration of his life is being planned for the near future.

Photo credit: James R. Anderson/Yale University