Weeb Ewbank

Weeb Ewbank
Personal information
Born:(1907-05-06)May 6, 1907
Richmond, Indiana, U.S.
Died:November 17, 1998(1998-11-17) (aged 91)
Oxford, Ohio, U.S.
Career information
High school:Richmond (Richmond, Indiana)
College:Miami (OH)
Career history
As a coach:
Executive profile at Pro Football Reference
Career highlights and awards
Career NFL statistics
Regular season:130–129–7 (.502)
Postseason:4–1 (.800)
Career:NFL: 134–130–7 (.507)
NCAA: 14–4 (.778)
Record at Pro Football Reference
Pro Football Hall of Fame

Wilbur Charles "Weeb" Ewbank (Pronounced: YOU-bank) (May 6, 1907 – November 17, 1998) was an American professional football coach. He led the Baltimore Colts to consecutive NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 and the New York Jets to victory in Super Bowl III in January 1969. He is the only coach to win a championship in both the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL).

Raised in Indiana, Ewbank attended Miami University in Ohio, where he was a multi-sport star who led his baseball, basketball, and football teams to state championships. He immediately began a coaching career after graduating, working at Ohio high schools between 1928 and 1943, when he entered the U.S. Navy during World War II. While in the military, Ewbank was an assistant to Paul Brown on a service football team at Naval Station Great Lakes outside of Chicago. Ewbank was discharged in 1945 and coached college sports for three years before reuniting with Brown as an assistant with the Cleveland Browns, a professional team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns won all four AAFC championships. They joined the NFL with the league's merger in 1950, winning the championship that year.

Ewbank left the Browns after the 1953 season to become head coach of the Colts, a young NFL team that had struggled in its first season. In 1956, Ewbank brought in quarterback Johnny Unitas, who quickly became a star and helped lead a potent offense that included wide receiver Raymond Berry and fullback Alan Ameche to an NFL championship in 1958. The Colts repeated as champions in 1959, but the team's performance slipped over the next three seasons and Ewbank was fired three weeks after their final game of the 1962 season.[1][2][3] He was soon picked up by the Jets, a team in the still new AFL. While his first few years were unsuccessful, Ewbank helped build the Jets into a contender after signing Alabama quarterback Joe Namath in 1965. The Jets won the AFL championship in 1968, and then went on to win Super Bowl III in one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.

Ewbank, who was known as a mild-mannered coach who favored simple but well-executed strategies, retired after the 1973 season and settled in Oxford, Ohio. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1978, and died twenty years later in Oxford on November 17, 1998, the 30th anniversary of the "Heidi Game".

  1. ^ "Ewbank to resign as Baltimore coach". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Associated Press. January 8, 1963. p. 15.
  2. ^ "Colts fire Ewbank, pick Shula". Pittsburgh Press. UPI. January 8, 1963. p. 29.
  3. ^ "Colts' grid shift boss' own idea". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Associated Press. January 9, 1963. p. 16.