Bob Cope (November 6, 1936 – August 3, 1997) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

coach. In a 32-year career, he served as assistant coach at Vanderbilt, SMU,

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, Ole Miss, Purdue,

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, USC, Baylor, and

Kansas State Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...

. During his career, he coached 23 nationally ranked defenses and participated in eight bowl games. A native of

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020 ...

, he played college football at Carson–Newman College, and was induced posthumously into the Carson–Newman Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002. Cope was an assistant coach at University of Pacific for Chester Caddas in the early 1970s. His only stint as head coach came at Pacific (1983–1988), where he had a 22–46 record. Cope was diagnosed with cancer in September 1996. He died at Mercy Health Center in

Manhattan, Kansas Manhattan is a city and county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River. As of the 2020 c ...

Head coaching record

References

1936 births 1997 deaths Arkansas Razorbacks football coaches Baylor Bears football coaches Carson–Newman Eagles football players Kansas State Wildcats football coaches Ole Miss Rebels football coaches Purdue Boilermakers football coaches Pacific Tigers football coaches SMU Mustangs football coaches USC Trojans football coaches Vanderbilt Commodores football coaches People from Chattanooga, Tennessee Players of American football from Tennessee Deaths from cancer in Kansas {{1960s-collegefootball-coach-stub