OHIO and the making of great coaches

[johnnyknoxville]

What is it about Ohio that molds coaches to be great? Weather, Water, Women?

Stoops
Myers
Miles
Saban

who else comes from there?

 

[Ohio Vol]

What is it about Ohio that molds coaches to be great? Weather, Water, Women?

Stoops
Myers
Miles
Saban

who else comes from there?

Don Shula
Paul Brown
Lou Holtz (born in WV, raised in Ohio)
Ara Parseghian
Woody Hayes
Bo Schembechler
Bill Mallory
(the last four were all head coaches at Miami University at some point)
Jim Tressel
Bo Pelini
Gary Pinkel
Chuck Noll
Urban Meyer

And so on...

There's plenty more who coached in Ohio at some point on their way up as well.

There's been plenty of time and effort expended trying to figure out exactly why Ohio produces so many coaches, and particularly high-quality ones. I think it has something to do with this.
- There are roughly 720 high schools that play football in the state (and this is after many years of consolidating and closing in northern and eastern Ohio)
- There are plenty of D-1 colleges to get started at (Kent State, Akron, Bowling Green, Toledo, Ohio, Cincinnati, Miami; throw in 1-AA Youngstown State; throw in D-2 Ashland and Central State; throw in all those D-3 schools, including Mount Union). I think this is the big one; Texas may have a bunch of D-1 schools, but for the most part, they're upper-echelon. Not many people think of Akron as being a dream job.
- Football is king in Ohio