Jerry Claiborne Jerry Claiborne ( August 2 , 1928 – September 24 , 2000 ) was an American football player and coach . He served as the head football coach at Virginia Tech ( 1961 – 1970 ) , the University of Maryland , College Park ( 1972 – 1981 ) , and his alma mater , the University of Kentucky ( 1982 – 1989 ) , compiling a career college football record of 179 – 122 – 8 . Claiborne was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1999 . Early years . Claiborne attended the Hopkinsville High School and the University of Kentucky and was named the College of Education ’ s Outstanding Senior . Claiborne played halfback under legendary coach Paul " Bear " Bryant at the University of Kentucky . In 1950 he became the head football and basketball coach at Augusta Military Academy in Fort Defiance , Augusta County , Virginia . His teams won the Virginia State basketball championship in 1950 and the football championship in 1951 . The following year he left to become Bryant ’ s assistant coach at Kentucky , following Bryant in the same capacity to Texas A & M and Alabama before he moved up to become a head coach . Head coach . Claiborne was head coach for the Virginia Polytechnic Institute from 1961 to 1970 with an overall record of 69 – 32 – 2 . The Hokies would not be as successful in football again until current coach Frank Beamer , who played for Claiborne at Virginia Tech , built the program into a powerhouse in the mid - 1990s . When Claiborne began coaching at the University of Maryland , the Terrapins had only won nine games in the previous five years . Claiborne led Maryland to a winning season after only his second year with the team . He coached Maryland for ten years and ended with a 77 – 37 – 3 record , including an undefeated regular season in 1976 , before losing to Houston in the Cotton Bowl Classic . Beginning in 1973 , his teams made it to six consecutive bowl games . In 1980 , he added one more bowl appearance for a total of seven . Under Claiborne , Maryland won the ACC Championship three times ( 1974 , 1975 , and 1976 ) . After the 1981 season at Maryland , Claiborne followed in the footsteps of Bear Bryant and went from College Park , Maryland , to Lexington , Kentucky ; the home of the University of Kentucky . In Claiborne ' s case , Kentucky was his alma mater . The University of Kentucky had just come off of four straight losing seasons . They offered Claiborne the head coaching position largely to help clean up a program that had been racked by numerous recruiting violations during the tenure of previous head coach Fran Curci . Claiborne took over as head coach of Kentucky in 1982 . After starting with a losing season record of 0 – 10 – 1 , he reached bowl games in his second and third seasons , posting records of 6 – 5 – 1 in 1983 and 9 – 3 in 1984 after which the Wildcats finished the season ranked # 19 in the final AP poll . The Wildcats win in the 1984 Hall of Fame Classic Bowl over Wisconsin would be the Wildcats last until winning the 2006 Music City Bowl over Clemson . Claiborne led the Kentucky program for eight years , ending with an overall record of 41 – 46 – 3 . He retired after posting a 6 – 5 record in the 1989 season . Famous quote . It was Jerry Claiborne who said : " Sam Cunningham did more for integration in sixty minutes than Martin Luther King did in twenty years . " ( After a 1970 42 - 21 loss in Birmingham to USC , and having Cunningham score two touchdowns and gain 131 yards , the integration of the Alabama football team was accelerated . However , Alabama did have an African - American player on the team at the time in Wilbur Jackson . Like all freshmen at the time , he was ineligible . )