Bud Riley Edward J . " Bud " Riley , Jr . ( 25 November 1925 – 4 August 2012 ) was an American football coach who served as an assistant coach for the University of Idaho and Oregon State University . He also spent 14 seasons in the Canadian Football League , most notably as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1974 to 1977 and as a front office executive for the Calgary Stampeders from 1985 to 1987 . He was the father of current Oregon State head coach Mike Riley . Early years . Riley was born and raised in Guin , Alabama , a mining community in the western part of the state . His father died when he was 12 , and he quit high school at age 17 during World War II to join the U . S . Navy . Following the war , he returned to western Alabama and later enrolled at nearby East Mississippi JC in Scooba . College . His junior college football prowess in his early 20s led him to the attention of University of Idaho head coach Dixie Howell , a hall of fame player in the 1930s from Alabama , who was tipped off by a friend . Riley ( 5 ' 10 " , 155 lb . ) informed Howell he was significantly larger than actually he was , which earned him an invitation to campus . Upon his arrival in Moscow in 1948 , Howell wanted the undersized Riley run off ; he had an assistant coach place Riley in a post - practice tackling drill with a much larger player , but Riley prevailed and stayed on the team . He played halfback for the Vandals in the PCC from 1948 to 1950 under Howell . In the home opener against Oregon in 1948 , Riley scored the Vandals ' only touchdown in a 15 - 8 loss in his first game at Neale Stadium . The Ducks featured Norm Van Brocklin and John McKay , and would finish the regular season at 9 - 1 as Pacific Coast co - champions . Riley also played for the Vandals ' baseball team . Early coaching years . High school . During his college summers and vacations , Riley had worked in the mines of the nearby Silver Valley at Wallace , and landed a job there with a mining company following graduation at age 26 in 1952 . The school superintendent was short - handed for instructors and asked him to fill in as a teacher , and he agreed to try it on an interim basis , with the mining company ' s permission . After growing up in a tough environment , Riley admired the hard - nosed grit of the mining community and found he liked teaching and coaching , and never returned to mining . He started as an assistant coach in football and basketball and the head coach in baseball . He was the head football coach at WHS for four seasons , starting in 1955 , leading the Miners to a 23 - 14 - 1 record . He was also the head coach in basketball for two seasons , starting in the fall of 1957 . Riley met his wife Mary ( from Mullan ) while working in Wallace ; they were married in November 1951 and their first two sons were born there . They left Wallace in 1959 for Lewiston , where he was the head football coach at Lewiston High School for three years . His overall record with the LHS Bengals was 15 - 14 - 1 , with a final season of 1 - 8 due to disciplinary actions . College . In May 1962 , he moved up to the collegiate ranks and joined the coaching staff at his alma mater , the University of Idaho , under first - year head coach Dee Andros . The Vandals posted their first winning record in a quarter century in 1963 , and in 1964 they beat neighbor WSU for the first time in a decade and barely lost the week before at Rose Bowl - bound Oregon State 10 - 7 on a second half punt return . When Tommy Prothro left OSU for UCLA , Andros moved over to Oregon State and the Pac - 8 in February 1965 , Riley followed him to Corvallis as the secondary coach , later defensive coordinator , from 1965 to 1972 . The best years were 1967 ( " Giant Killers " ) and 1968 , when the Beavers were nationally ranked . CFL coach . After eight seasons in Corvallis , Riley moved to the Canadian Football League ( CFL ) in 1973 , as defensive coordinator of the Saskatchewan Roughriders , where he made significant improvements to a poorly rated defense . Riley was hired as the head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1974 ; head coach Jim Spavital was fired after the Blue Bombers finished last in the Western Conference in 1973 . The Bombers didn ' t make it out of the first round in Riley ' s three postseason appearances , and he was let go after the 1977 CFL season . His next coaching job was as an assistant with the Toronto Argonauts . He replaced the fired Leo Cahill as head coach with seven games remaining , finishing with a 1 - 6 record . He returned to Oregon State in 1979 as an assistant to Craig Fertig , but Fertig was fired by Andros midway through the season . Riley returned to the CFL in 1980 , as the defensive backs coach for Saskatchewan . In January 1981 , he was hired by the Hamilton Tiger - Cats as the defensive coordinator under head coach Frank Kush , and was promoted to head coach for the 1982 season . He lasted only halfway into his second season before being replaced by director of player personnel Al Bruno . Riley spent the 1984 season as defensive co - ordinator for the Edmonton Eskimos . He moved to the front office in 1985 , serving as the Calgary Stampeders player personnel director for three seasons . He also served as interim coach for the remainder of the 1985 season after the firing of head coach Steve Buratto , ( whom Riley had recruited to Idaho as a player ) . He was inducted into the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998 . Personal . Bud and his wife Mary had three sons : Mike ( b . 1953 ) , Ed ( b . 1958 ) , and Pete ( b . 1964 ) . Mike spent his junior high and high school years in Corvallis and was midway through college at Alabama when Bud left OSU and became a nomadic coach in the CFL in 1973 . The younger sons , specifically Pete , attended many different schools , primarily in Canada , in the 1970s and early 1980s ( both went to four high schools , in a different city each year ) . Ed spent his senior year at Gonzaga Prep in Spokane , and then went to Whitworth College . Bud ' s brother Hayden was the head basketball coach at Alabama ( 1960 – 68 ) , and later was the head baseball coach of the Tide in the 1970s . Riley died near his home in Penticton , British Columbia on August 4 , 2012 .