Ray Tellier

Ray Tellier (born 1951) is an American football coach and athletic administrator. He is best known for his 14 years as the head coach at Columbia.

Tellier grew up in West Haven, Connecticut and was a high school football All-American, playing for his father in 1968. He would attend the University of Connecticut and lead that team to the Yankee Conference title in 1971.

After graduating from Connecticut in 1973, Tellier entered the coaching ranks, serving as an assistant at Connecticut, Dartmouth, and Boston University during the 1970s. In 1978 he became offensive coordinator at Brown University under coach John Anderson. Brown was experiencing a revival in football at the time and Tellier's time there was a successful one.

When Anderson resigned in 1983, Tellier moved on to become head coach (for the first time) at Division III University of Rochester. He would turn the moribund program around over the next five years, going 9–2 and making the Division III playoffs for the first time in school history in 1987. His overall record at Rochester was 21–26–1.

In 1989 Tellier was hired by Columbia and asked to revive their program (which had just broken a 44-game losing streak) in a similar fashion. His results were mixed. Significant improvement did not begin to be seen until 1994 and in 1996 the team would win 8 games for the first time since 1945. But thereafter the team slowly declined again until by 2002 the team was again winless in the Ivy League. Tellier stepped aside at the end of that season and joined the administrative side of the athletic department. In 2005 he was appointed an Associate Athletics Director and continues to serve in that capacity.

Coaching record

References

• Columbia University Biography
• NY Times 9-18-1989
• Tellier Biography