Paul Dietzel

Paul Dietzel (Born September 5, 1924, in Fremont, Ohio) is a former college football head coach at LSU, Army and South Carolina. He is also a former athletic director. He led the LSU Tigers to a national championship in 1958, a performance for which he was named the National Coach of the Year by both AFCA and FWAA.

Dietzel began his football career in Mansfield, Ohio, where his high school team went undefeated and tied for 2nd in the state. After high school, he was given a scholarship to play football at Duke University. After one year at Duke he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. From there he moved on to Miami University of Ohio, where he became an All-American at center.

After graduating from Miami in 1948, he began his coaching career as an assistant coach. He served under such legendary coaches as Red Blaik at Army and Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky.

In 1955, Dietzel became the head coach at LSU. During Dietzel's first three years, none of his LSU teams had a winning season.

In 1958, however, Dietzel came up with a unique 3-team platoon system. It consisted of 3 teams of 11 different players, and was designed to keep his players from being fatigued in an era when most players started on both offense and defense. Instead of replacing individual players during the game, Dietzel would bring in an entirely new set of players between plays and series. The three teams were called the White Team (the first-string offense and defense), the Gold (Go) Team (the second-string offense), and the Chinese Bandits (the second-string defense). The system worked, as the Tigers went undefeated and won the 1958 national championship. The Chinese Bandits second-string defensive unit, which consisted of less-talented but ferocious players, became hugely popular with LSU fans and remains one of the most legendary pieces of LSU football history.

After 1958, Dietzel continued to have success at LSU. His teams finished with 9-1 regular seasons in 1959 and 1961, finishing #3 and #4 in the final AP Poll. The 1959 team was ranked first in the country in both wire-service polls until losing to the Tennessee Volunteers 14-13 in the eighth game of the season, but suffered a humiliating 21-0 loss to hated rival Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, two months after the top-ranked Tigers beat the third-ranked Rebels 7-3 in Tiger Stadium on Billy Cannon's 89-yard punt return, the play helped that won Cannon the Heisman Trophy.

After the 1961 season, Dietzel accepted the head coach position at Army. He was the first non-Army graduate to have the position. In a 2005 article for the Concordia Sentinel of Ferriday, Dietzel said that leaving LSU was one of the hardest decisions he ever made.

"I think the way you measure my move is 'Was LSU better when I left than when I came in?'" Dietzel said. "It was tough leaving. I never considered going anywhere else because I thought LSU was the best coaching job in America. I loved the LSU fans. They are crazy and passionate about it. I had never considered West Point because they had never had a non-graduate coach. When they came around and asked me if I would be interested, it opened a door I thought would never be opened."

Dietzel stayed at Army until 1966, when he became head coach and athletic director at the University of South Carolina. However, he was not able to match the success he had at LSU at either school. He had a record of 21-18-1 at Army, and a record of 42-53-1 at South Carolina, including the school's only conference championship of any kind in the sport, the 1969 Atlantic Coast Conference championship.

Dietzel left coaching in 1975 to become the commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference for one year. He then served as athletic director at Indiana University before returning to LSU in 1978. He was the school's athletic director from 1978 to 1982. Dietzel also served as president of the American Football Coaches Association and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

After retiring from college athletics, Dietzel became a watercolor painter, and continues to sell his paintings (See [1]). He is now retired and living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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More Information

Personal

Born September 5, 1924, in Fremont, OH; son of Clarence Harland and Catherine (Bihmer) Dietzel; married Anne Wilson, September 25, 1944; Dietzel's children: Stephen Paul and his wife Judy, Kathie Anne and her husband Dale. Dietzel's only grandchildren include Stephen's son Paul Dietzel II and Kathie's son David DuTremble. Both grandchildren are at Louisiana State University.

Education: Duke University, student, 1942-43; Miami University, Oxford, OH, B.S. in Ed., 1948.

Religion: Christianity

Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, 1943-45; pilot; became lieutenant; received Air Medal with clusters, Presidential Citation.

Memberships: Rotary, Junior Chamber of Commerce, Omicron Delta Kappa (president), Kappa Delta Pi (president).

Awards

National Football Coach of the year, 1958; Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year, 1969.

Career

Assistant football coach: U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, 1948, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 1949-50, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 1951-52, U.S. Military Academy, 1953-54;

Head football coach: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1955-62, U.S. Military Academy, 1962-66; University of South Carolina, Columbia, director of athletics and head football coach, 1966-75;

Ohio Valley Conference (athletic), commissioner, 1975–.

Radio and television broadcaster during football season.

Trustee and past president of American Football Coaches Association; trustee and past national president of Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Works

Wing T and the Chinese Bandits, privately printed, 1959.

(With Ev Houghton) Go Shorty Go, Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.

Coaching Football, Ronald, 1971.

See also

• List of presidents of the American Football Coaches Association