Len Casanova
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Leonard Joseph "Len" Casanova (June 12, 1905 - September 30, 2002) was an American college football coach first at Santa Clara University, then the University of Pittsburgh and finally for nearly 20 years, from 1946 to 1966, at the University of Oregon. Born in Ferndale, California he attended and played for Santa Clara and finished his career as the Athletic Director, and then AD-emertius at Oregon. He is a 1977 inductee to the College Football Hall of Fame.
| Len "Cas" Casanova | ||
|---|---|---|
| Sport | Football | |
| Born | June 12, 1905 | |
| Place of birth | Ferndale, California | |
| Died | September 30, 2002 | |
| Career highlights | ||
| Overall | 104-94-11 (.524) | |
| Coaching stats | ||
| College Football DataWarehouse | ||
| Championships | ||
| 1950 Orange Bowl (Santa Clara) 1963 Sun Bowl (Oregon) 1957 Pacific Coast Conference champions |
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| Awards | ||
| College Football Hall of Fame (coach) Santa Clara University Hall of Fame Univ. of Oregon Hall of Fame Pres. American Football Coaches Assn (1964) AFCA Honorary Member (1971) Amos Alonzo Stagg Award (1990) |
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| Playing career | ||
| 1923-1926 | Santa Clara | |
| Position | ? / Punter | |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||
| 1927 1928-1935 1936-1942 1940-1942 -- W W II -- 1946-1949 1950 1951-1966 1967-1970 |
St. Joseph Mil. Academy (Belmont, Cal.) Sequoia HS (Redwood City, Cal.) Santa Clara - Asst. FB Coach Santa Clara - Head Baseball Coach Military Service -- U.S. Navy Santa Clara - Head Coach Pittsburgh - Head Coach Oregon - Head Coach Oregon - Athletic Director |
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| College Football Hall of Fame, 1977 (Bio) | ||
Contents |
[edit] Personal life
Casanova was born to to Swiss-American immigrants, John and Marie Ursula Casanov on June 12, 1905 on a ranch in the Grizzly Bluff area near Ferndale, California. He married Dixie Simmers of Santa Cruz on June 12, 1931. Dixie attended San Jose State College and taught kindergarten. Three years after the untimely passing of Dixie Casanova at age 51 on October 17, 1960, Cas married Margaret Pence Hathaway and the couple moved to Eugene, Oregon. Casanova died following an extended illness, at approximately 10:32 p.m. Monday September 30, 2002 at Sheldon Park Assisted Living in Eugene, Oregon.
[edit] Playing career
He got his start in football in the early 1920s when he played halfback for Ferndale (Calif.) High School, and in 1922 he captained the Ferndale team to a co-championship with Eureka High School. The Ferndale team ended the season with seven wins in eight games. One of Casanova’s early athletic feats came in the first game that year against Arcata (Calif.) High when, as a left-footed kicker, he drop-kicked a 45-yard field goal as Ferndale defeated the Tigers 10-0.
Clark Bugbee, a high school teammate, later recalled that “Cas wanted to be a good punter. The coach gave him a football to take home and practice with. He practiced winter and summer and turned out to be quite a punter in college.”
While in high school, Cas delivered newspapers and worked at a meat market in town. In his senior year, Cas also played basketball and baseball and was president of the student body. In the 1923 Ferndale High yearbook, under the column “Expected to Be” in the Senior Horoscope section, Cas listed his future career as “football coach.”
Casanova entered Santa Clara University in the fall of 1923 and played American football and baseball from 1923 through 1927. As a freshman in a game against Stanford University, Cas picked up a fumble and returned it 86 yards for a touchdown.
In 1924, Casanova was playing halfback and doing the punting for Santa Clara. He first hit the headlines as a player for Santa Clara in 1924 for his heroics in the Santa Clara — St. Mary’s game. A popular rivalry since it origination in 1895, the “Little Big Game” was played annually in front of packed crowds at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Playing against St. Mary’s, with the ball resting on the Santa Clara two yard line, Casanova was called on to punt from his own end zone. He punted a ball that went out of bounds on the St. Mary's one yard line. The punt traveled a total of 97 yards and would (as of 2006) rank as the second longest of college football history if pre-1937 statistics were included in the NCAA record book.
Casanova was Santa Clara’s team captain in his senior year, where his coach was Adam Walsh, who had played at Notre Dame under Knute Rockne. Casanova graduated in 1927 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a minor in history. He attended summer sessions at SCU and obtained his teaching credential in 1932.
Following college graduation, Casanova played one season with the San Francisco Olympic Club team.
[edit] Coaching career
- Prep:
1927 - Len began his teaching and coaching career at St. Joseph Military Academy in Belmont (Cal.). 1928-1935 - In 1928, he began teaching physical education and coaching football and baseball at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California. As head football coach at Sequoia High, Casanova’s team won the Peninsula Athletic League championship in 1935.
- College: 21 year Head Coach -- 104-94-11 (.524)
- Santa Clara --
- (1936-1942) Assistant Coach
- Santa Clara --
In 1936, Cas became an assistant coach at his alma mater Santa Clara University under the legendary "Silver Fox", Lawrence T. "Buck" Shaw. During that time Santa Clara defeated LSU in the 1937 Sugar Bowl in what was described as "the major upset of the post-season.” In the fall of 1937 Santa Clara went undefeated, sharing the number nine Associated Press ranking with Notre Dame, and the Broncos were invited to the Sugar Bowl again where they stunned eighth-ranked LSU, 6-0. He remained Shaw's assistant until Santa Clara suspended football after the 1942 war-time season and Casanova (as most Santa Clarans did) left to join the war effort. Cas joined the United States Navy commissioned as a full Lieutenant and was discharged at the end of the war as a full naval Commander. In addition to being assistant football coach, Cas was also head baseball coach from 1939 to 1942.
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- (1946-1949) Head Coach -- 20-13-3 (.597)
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His 1949 Santa Clara team beat Bear Bryant's Kentucky team in the Orange Bowl. Casanova’s 1948 team defeated Stanford and tied Michigan State, along with posting an upset win over Oklahoma at Kezar Stadium, 20-17. In 1949, the Santa Clara Broncos opened with a disappointing defeat at the hands of the California Golden Bears Rose Bowl team. Santa Clara then went unbeaten over its next eight games--marred only by a 7-7 tie with Stanford. After nearly upsetting mighty Oklahoma in its final game, 28-21, the Broncos were invited to play in the Orange Bowl game in Miami. Their opponent was the Associated Press number eleven ranked University of Kentucky Wildcats, coached by Paul "Bear" Bryant. Bryant, who later became the all-time winningest football coach in collegiate history after moving on to Texas A & M and Alabama, had earlier served under Casanova in the United States Navy. Kentucky was an overwhelming favorite. Santa Clara’s nineteen-car train was known as the “Orange Bowl Special”’ and it stopped at Yuma, Arizona, and Del Rio, Texas, to allow the team to hold short practice sessions. In Miami Santa Clara scored a monumental upset of Kentucky, 21-13. Santa Clara was ahead 14-13 and scored its final touchdown with thirty seconds remaining in the game. Bear Bryant remarked after the game: "I had better men at my disposal than Casanova had. He got more out of his men than I did"
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- after the 1950 Orange Bowl win Santa Clara announced that as a cost cutting measure it was dropping Major College football
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- Pittsburgh -- (1950) Head Coach -- 1-8-0 (.111)
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In 1950, Cas was offered the head coaching position at the University of Pittsburgh. Cas expected to have an experienced Pitt team to play a tough schedule against Notre Dame, Michigan State, and Ohio State. But in June 1950, the Korean War began and most of his football players were called to military duty. His depleted ranks were able to gain but one victory in the 1950 season.
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- Oregon -- (1951-1966) Head Coach -- 82-73-8 (.528)
Took over an Oregon program that had finished 1-9 the previous season and left as the winningest coach in the school's football history a distinction he retained until surpassed by Rich Brooks in 1994. The Oregon Ducks played in one of the earliest nationally-televised games in 1953 against Nebraska--winning 20-12. His 1957 team is remembered for beating Stanford in a game in which Oregon had no fumbles, no interceptions, and only one penalty. Such error-free exhibitions are rare. That team finished it season with a 10-7 loss to No. 1-ranked Ohio State in the 1958 Rose Bowl. Tabbed for a three touchdown licking, Casanova’s Oregon Ducks refused to accept the odds and matched the more numerous and more powerful athletes from the Big Ten out gaining Ohio State in total yards and first downs. Only a missed fourth quarter 24 yard field goal or an unfortunate Oregon fumble during a sustained drive after the ensuing kickoff following Ohio State's go-ahead fourth quarter 34-yard field goal stood between them and Ohio State's victory. His 1958 team ranked second in the country in scoring defense, allowing an average of just five points a game and only surrendering more than seven points once during the entire season. Casanova served as the school's athletic director from 1967-70, and after assisting with the completion of Autzen Stadium, stayed active into the new century associated with numerous fund-raising and special projects that improved the Oregon athletic facilities significantly. Widely regarded as the most beloved sports figure in the state, the university in 1991 felt that his distinguished record merited an exception to State Board of Higher Education policy regarding the naming of buildings after living persons and in honor of his 40-year contribution to the Ducks’ athletic fortunes named its new athletic department facilities the Len Casanova Athletic Center. At the time of his passing in 2002 many Oregonians credited Casanova with building the foundation for Oregon's then national status. "Everything that Oregon athletics is today, it owes to Len Casanova," said Bill Moos, 2002 Oregon athletic director. "He has been the pillar, the strength and the inspiration for our program for over 50 years." At Oregon, Casanova coached two future Hall of Famers -- Mel Renfro and Dave Wilcox -- and helped assistants George Seifert, John McKay and John Robinson start their own illustrious coaching careers. "He was a mentor to all us, a man who set an example," Robinson said. "And he loved us. He genuinely cared about us as players." "He would get on our butt if we didn't go to church, and if you didn't go to school he would darn near punch you out." Said Mike Bellotti, Oregon 2002 football coach: "We lost a great man. He definitely left his mark not just on the University of Oregon but on football in general."
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- Casanova served in 1964 as president of the American Football Coaches Association, was on the football rules committee 1969-73 and received the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award in 1990.
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At Oregon the award given to the Freshman or Newcomer of the year is named in his honor the "Len Casanova Award"
While still active at age 96 and attending reunions with his former players and coaches, Cas sat for an interview with Jeremiah R. Scott Jr. and named some of the highlights of his coaching career:
- Most Memorable Game - 1950 Santa Clara's Orange Bowl win over Kentucky
- Most Exciting Game - 1957 Rose Bowl against Ohio State
- Most Memorable Players Coached -
- Mel Renfro, Dick James, George Shaw, Hall Haynes,
- John Hock, Bobby Moore who later converted to Islam and is better known as Ahmad Rashad, and Dave Wilcox
- Best Coaching Opponent - Jim Owens of Washington.
[edit] External links
Much of the information for this article came from:
Jeremiah R. Scott Jr.'s article in the
College Football Historical Society Newsletter Volume XV, Number III (May 2002)
"Len Casanova, A West Coast Football Legend"
also see:
and: College Football DataWarehouse Coaching Stats
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| Preceded by Lawrence T. "Buck" Shaw |
Santa Clara Broncos Head Coaches 1946–1949 |
Succeeded by Frank T. Gallager |
| Preceded by Walt Milligan |
University of Pittsburgh Football Coaches 1950 |
Succeeded by Tom Hamilton |
| Preceded by Jim Aiken |
University of Oregon Football Coaches | Succeeded by Jerry Frei |
