Marion Anthony Samuel (born November 14, 1955) is an American college football coach and former player. He served as head football coach at

New Mexico State University New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the stat ...

(NMSU) from 1997 to 2004 and

Southeast Missouri State University Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) is a public university in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. In addition to the main campus, the university has four regional campuses offering full degree programs and a secondary campus housing the Holland Col ...

(SEMO) from 2005 to 2013, compiling a career college football record of 65 wins and 117 losses. Samuel had a 34–57 record at New Mexico State, which puts him third all-time for wins in program history.

Playing career

Samuel played four years at the

University of Nebraska–Lincoln The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (Nebraska, NU, or UNL) is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was known as the Univer ...

and was a member of

Tom Osborne Thomas William Osborne (born February 23, 1937) is a former American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and politician from Nebraska. He served as head football coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 1973 to 1997 (25 seaso ...

's first recruiting class. He was a two-year starter at

defensive end Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football. This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formations over the years have substantially changed how the position is p ...

, played in four

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

s and earned honorable mention All-

Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associat ...

honors as a senior.

Early coaching career

From 1986 to 1996, Samuel coached the outside

linebackers Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, pla ...

and rush ends at Nebraska, his alma mater, for head coach Tom Osborne. He mentored six first-team All-Americans and 12 future

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 ma ...

players, including first-round draft picks Broderick Thomas (1989), Mike Croel (1991),

Trev Alberts Trev Kendall AlbertsJim Offner '' Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier'', February 6, 2013, accessed July 8, 2013. (born August 8, 1970) is an American sports administrator and former football linebacker who is the director of athletics at University o ...

(1994) and Grant Wistrom (1998). During Samuel's 11 seasons with the Cornhuskers, they were national champions in 1994 and 1995, captured seven Big Eight or

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...

Conference championships, averaged 10 wins per year and played in 11 bowl games.

Head coaching tenures

At New Mexico State from 1997 to 2004 as his contract was not renewed, Samuel compiled a 34–57 record. Their 6–5 record in 1999 was the best since 1992 and a 7–5 record in 2002 remains their best record since 1970 and through the 2016 season.

Personal life

A native of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, small ...

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...

, Samuel moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, at the age of 10. He earned his B.S. degree in education from Nebraska in 1981.

Head coaching record

References

External links

UNLV profile

Southeast Missouri State profile (2013)

New Mexico State profile (2004)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel, Tony 1955 births Living people American football defensive ends Georgia State Panthers football coaches Nebraska Cornhuskers football coaches Nebraska Cornhuskers football players New Mexico State Aggies football coaches Purdue Boilermakers football coaches Southeast Missouri State Redhawks football coaches Stanford Cardinal football coaches UNLV Rebels football coaches Western Michigan Broncos football coaches Trinidad and Tobago emigrants to the United States Trinidad and Tobago players of American football