List of Arizona Cardinals head coaches

Bud Wilkinson (right) with United States President John F. Kennedy, during a 1961 visit to the White House. Wilkinson was the 26th head coach of the Cardinals.

The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in Glendale, Arizona. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The team began as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898 in Chicago, Illinois. The team's second name was the Racine Normals, since it played at Normal Field on Racine Street. In 1901, they were renamed to the Racine Street Cardinals, a name that came from the University of Chicago jerseys that the team used, which were described as "Cardinal red". The team was established in Chicago in 1898 and was a charter member of the NFL in 1920. The team has played their home games at the State Farm Stadium since 2006 and is the oldest franchise in the NFL.[1][2]

The team has moved to numerous cities during its history. After staying in Chicago from 1920 to 1959, it moved to St. Louis, Missouri and remained there from 1960 to 1987. It played in Tempe, Arizona, from 1988 to 2005, before eventually settling in Glendale, Arizona in 2006, where it now resides.[3] Since 1920, two Cardinals coaches have won the NFL Championship: Norman Barry in 1925 and Jimmy Conzelman in 1947. Six other coaches—Don Coryell, Jim Hanifan, Vince Tobin, Ken Whisenhunt, Bruce Arians, and Kliff Kingsbury—have led the Cardinals to the playoffs, and in 2009 they went to the Super Bowl.[3]

There have been 43 head coaches for the Cardinals franchise since it became a professional team in 1920; fourteen of the team's coaches are former Cardinals players.[4] Ernie Nevers and Jimmy Conzelman are the only coaches to have had more than one tenure with the team. Pop Ivy and Gene Stallings both coached the team during its move from one city to another. Cardinals coach Roy Andrews is tied for the lowest winning percentage among the team's coaches (.000), having lost the only game he coached in the 1931 season.[5] Co-coach Walt Kiesling lost all ten games he coached in 1943, when the team merged with the Steelers during World War II and was known as Card-Pitt.[6] Co-coaches Ray Willsey, Ray Prochaska, and Chuck Drulis have the highest winning percentage among Cardinals coaches (1.000). The team's all-time leader in games coached is Ken Whisenhunt, who was hired on January 14, 2007,[7] with 96. Whisenhunt was fired on December 31, 2012, after the Cardinals recorded a 5–11 record in 2012.[8] The all-time leader in wins is Bruce Arians with fifty, including one playoff victory.[4]

  1. ^ "Stadium History". UniversityofPhoenixStadium.com. Global Spectrum. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008. Retrieved December 16, 2008.
  2. ^ "Arizona Cardinals". Pro Football Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on June 12, 2008. Retrieved July 8, 2008.
  3. ^ a b "Arizona Cardinals". CBS Sports. Archived from the original on November 18, 2008. Retrieved December 5, 2008.
  4. ^ a b "Arizona Cardinals Franchise Encyclopedia". Pro Football Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on September 7, 2008. Retrieved July 17, 2008.
  5. ^ "Roy Andrews Coaching Record". Pro Football Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on February 19, 2008. Retrieved April 15, 2008.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kiesling was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Head Coach: Ken Whisenhunt". NFL.com. Archived from the original on September 19, 2008. Retrieved August 8, 2008.
  8. ^ Rapoport, Ian (December 31, 2012). "Cardinals fire Ken Whisenhunt, GM Rod Graves". NFL.com. NFL Enterprises LLC. Archived from the original on October 22, 2013. Retrieved December 31, 2012.