Clarence Lamar McHan (December 16, 1932 – November 23, 1998) 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 ...

player and coach. He played professionally for ten seasons as a

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for the

Chicago Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ...

, Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Colts, and

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

Early years

Born and raised in

Lake Village, Arkansas Lake Village is a city in and the county seat of Chicot County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,575 at the 2010 census. It is located in the Arkansas Delta. Lake Village is named for its location on Lake Chicot, an oxbow lake for ...

, McHan graduated from its Lakeside High School and played college football at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

in Fayetteville where he was a

single-wing In American and Canadian football, a single-wing formation was a precursor to the modern spread or shotgun formation. The term usually connotes formations in which the snap is tossed rather than handed—formations with one wingback and a ha ...

tailback. He was ninth in the

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Yug ...

Heisman Trophy balloting and played in the

Blue-Gray Game Livid is a medium bluish- gray color. This color name comes from the Latin color term ''lividus'' meaning "'a dull leaden-blue color', and also used to describe the color of contused flesh, leading to the English expression 'black and blue'" ...

in December and the College All-Star Game in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in August 1954.

Playing career

McHan was the second overall selection of the

1954 NFL draft The 1954 National Football League Draft was held on January 28, 1954, at The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. This was the eighth year that the first overall pick was a bonus pick determined by lottery. With the previous seven winners i ...

, taken by the

. He played with the Cardinals for five seasons, through

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

, but was suspended and fined by the team in November

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, ar ...

for insubordination. McHan was traded to the Green Bay Packers in May

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

, under first-year head coach and general manager

Vince Lombardi Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized a ...

. In 1959, he was the starting quarterback for the first six games, then had a minor leg injury, and was replaced by future hall of fame quarterback

Bart Starr Bryan Bartlett Starr (January 9, 1934 – May 26, 2019) was an American professional football quarterback and head coach for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of ...

. McHan started and won several games in

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Jan ...

, then was traded to the Baltimore Colts in March

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...

, and played behind Johnny Unitas. He was waived by the Colts in September

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...

and was picked up by

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He played briefly with the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

of the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL) in 1965, winning the starting job at training camp, only to be cut after losing his first two starts.

Coaching career

After retiring from football, McHan became an assistant coach at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and at the

University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of ...

. He finished out his coaching career back in the NFL with the

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

from 1974 to

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

under three different head coaches: John North, Dick Nolan, and

Bum Phillips Oail Andrew "Bum" Phillips Jr. (September 29, 1923 – October 18, 2013) was an American football coach at the high school, college and professional levels. He served as head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for the Houston Oilers fro ...

. (He was not on the staff of

Hank Stram Henry Louis Stram (; January 3, 1923 – July 4, 2005) was an American football coach. He is best known for his 15-year tenure with the Dallas Texans / Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NF ...

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 ...

and

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

Death

McHan died at age 65 in Jefferson, Louisiana, a suburb west of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

in 1998. He is buried at Garden of Memories in Metairie.

References

External links

*
Sports Reference
– collegiate statistics – Lamar McHan * {{DEFAULTSORT:McHan, Lamar 1932 births 1998 deaths American football quarterbacks American players of Canadian football Arkansas Razorbacks football players Baltimore Colts players Chicago Cardinals players Green Bay Packers players New Orleans Saints coaches Northern Arizona Lumberjacks football coaches San Francisco 49ers players Texas–Arlington Mavericks football coaches Toronto Argonauts players People from Lake Village, Arkansas Players of American football from Arkansas