Sid Gillman Sidney " Sid " Gillman ( October 26 , 1911 – January 3 , 2003 ) was an American football player , coach , executive , and innovator . Gillman ' s insistence on stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes , instead of short passes to running back s or wide receiver s at the sides of the line of scrimmage , was instrumental in making football into the modern game that it is today . Gillman played football as an end at Ohio State University from 1931 to 1933 . He played professionally for one season in 1936 with the Cleveland Rams of the second American Football League . After serving as an assistant coach at Ohio State from 1938 to 1940 , Gillman was the head football coach at Miami University from 1944 to 1947 and at the University of Cincinnati from 1949 to 1954 , compiling a career college football record of 81 – 19 – 2 . He then moved to the ranks of professional football , where he headed the NFL ' s Los Angeles Rams ( 1955 – 1959 ) , the American Football League ' s Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers ( 1960 – 1969 ) , and the NFL ' s Chargers ( 1971 ) , and Houston Oilers ( 1973 – 1974 ) , amassing a career record of 123 – 104 – 7 in the National Football League and the American Football League . Gillman ' s 1963 San Diego Chargers won the AFL Championship . Gillman was inducted as a coach into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989 - - - the sole coach in the history of American football to have earned both honors . Biography . Born in Minneapolis , Minnesota , Gillman played college football at Ohio State University under legendary coach Francis Schmidt , forming the basis of his offense . He was a team captain and All - Big Ten Conference end in 1933 . Always deeply interested in the game , while working as a movie theater usher , he removed football segments from newsreel s that the theater would show , so that he could take them home and study them on a projector he had bought . This dedication to filmed football plays made Gillman the first coach to study game footage , something that all coaches do today . Gillman played one year in the American Football League ( 1936 ) for the Cleveland Rams , then became an assistant coach at Denison University , Ohio State University , and was an assistant coach to Earl Blaik of Army , then head coach at Miami University and at the University of Cincinnati . His record over 10 years as a college head coach were 81 – 19 – 2 . He returned to professional football as a head coach with the Los Angeles Rams , leading the team to the NFL ' s championship game , and then moved to the American Football League ( 1960 – 1969 ) , where he coached the Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers to five Western Division titles and one league championship in the first six years of the league ' s existence . His greatest coaching success came after he was persuaded by Barron Hilton , then the Chargers ' majority owner , to become the head coach of the American Football League franchise he planned to operate in Los Angeles . When the team ' s general manager , Frank Leahy , became ill during the Chargers ' founding season , Gillman took on additional responsibilities as general manager . As the first coach of the Chargers , Gillman gave the team a mercurial personality that matched his own . He had much to do with the American Football League being able to establish itself . Gillman was a thorough professional , and in order to compete with him , his peers had to learn pro ways . They learned , and the American Football League became the genesis of modern professional football . " Sid Gillman brought class to the AFL , " Oakland Raiders managing general partner Al Davis once said of the man he served under on that first Chargers team . " Being part of Sid ' s organization was like going to a laboratory for the highly developed science of professional football . " Through Gillman ' s tenure as head coach , the Chargers went 87 – 57 – 6 and won five AFL Western Division titles . In 1963 they captured the only league championship the club ever won by outscoring the Boston Patriots , 51 – 10 , in the American Football League championship game in Balboa Stadium . That game was a measure of Gillman ' s genius . He crafted a game plan he entitled " Feast or Famine " that used motion , then seldom seen , to negate the Patriots ' blitzes . His plan freed running back Keith Lincoln to rush for 206 yards . In addition to Lincoln , on Gillman ' s teams through the ' 60s were these notable players : wide receiver Lance Alworth ; offensive tackle Ron Mix ; running back Paul Lowe ; quarterback John Hadl ; and defensive linemen Ernie Ladd and Earl Faison ( Alworth and Mix are Hall of Famer s ) . Gillman was one of only two head coaches to hold that position for the entire 10 - year existence of the American Football League ( the other was Hank Stram , who coached the Dallas Texans and Kansas City Chiefs from 1960 through 1974 ) . Gillman approached then - NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1963 with the idea of having the champions of the AFL and the NFL play a single final game , but his idea was not implemented until the Super Bowl game was played in 1967 . Following his tenure with San Diego , he coached the Houston Oilers for two years from 1973 to 1974 , helping bring the club out of the funk it had been in for many seasons prior , and closer to playoff contention . He later served as a consultant for both Dick Vermeil ' s Philadelphia Eagles and the United States Football League ' s Los Angeles Express in 1984 . In July 1983 , at age 71 , Gillman came out of retirement after an offer from Bill Tatham , Sr . and Bill Tatham , Jr . , owners of the United States Football League expansion team the Oklahoma Outlaws . Gillman agreed to serve as Director of Operations and signed quarterback Doug Williams , who later led the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII . Although Gillman signed a roster of players to play for the Tulsa , Oklahoma - based franchise , he was fired by Tatham six months later in a dispute over finances . Influence . Gillman ' s influence on the modern game can be seen by listing the current and former coaches and executives who either played with him or coached for him : Coaching tree . Numbers indicate Super Bowls won by Gillman ' s " descendants " , a total of twenty - five , including Super Bowl XLVII winning coach John Harbaugh . Don Coryell , the coach at San Diego State University when Gillman was coaching the San Diego Chargers , would bring his team to Chargers ' practices to watch how Gillman ran his practices . Coryell went on to coach in the NFL , and some of his assistants , influenced by the Gillman style , included coaches Joe Gibbs , Ernie Zampese and Russ A . Molzahn . Honors and death . Gillman was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989 . Upon his death in 2003 , Gillman was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City , California .