Alex Agase Alexander Arrasi Agase ( March 27 , 1922 – May 3 , 2007 ) was an American football guard and linebacker who was named an All - America n three times in college and played on three Cleveland Browns championship teams before becoming head football coach at Northwestern University and Purdue University . Agase grew up in Illinois and attended the University of Illinois , where he was a standout as a guard starting in 1941 . He was named an All - American in 1942 . Agase then entered the U . S . Marines during World War II and played a season at Purdue while in training . He was again named an All - American in 1943 . After his discharge from the Marines , he came back to Illinois and played a final season in 1946 , after which he was named an All - American for a third time . Agase began his professional football career with the Los Angeles Dons of the All - America Football Conference ( AAFC ) in 1947 , but was soon traded to the Chicago Rockets and then the Browns , where he remained until 1952 . Cleveland won two AAFC championships and one National Football League championship while Agase was on the team . After retiring from football , Agase was worked as an assistant coach for the Dallas Texans and , after a brief return to playing for the Baltimore Colts , Iowa State University . He was hired as an assistant at Northwestern in 1956 under head coach Ara Parseghian . Agase remained as an assistant until Parseghian left to coach at Notre Dame in 1963 and he was named the new head coach . Agase guided the Northwestern Wildcats to a 32 – 58 – 1 win - loss - tie record in nine seasons . He was named coach of the year by the Football Writers Association of America after guiding the team to a 6 – 4 record in 1970 . Agase left to coach at Purdue in 1972 , but none of his teams posted a winning record there , and he was fired in 1977 . He then spent six years as athletic director at Eastern Michigan University before retiring . Agase died in 2007 . He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1963 . Early life and college . Agase was born in Chicago , Illinois to an Assyrian father and an Armenian mother . He attended Evanston Township High School , but only played on the school ' s varsity football team in his senior year . After graduating , he attended the University of Illinois and played college football there as a right guard in 1941 and 1942 . In a 1942 game against the University of Minnesota , Agase scored two touchdown s for the Fighting Illini , becoming only the second guard in college football history to accomplish that feat . The first touchdown came in the second quarter , when Agase stripped the ball from Minnesota ' s Bill Daley and ran it back 35 yards . The second was a fourth - quarter fumble recovery in the end zone to give Illinois a 20 – 13 victory . In another game against Great Lakes Naval Training Station , a military team , Agase had 22 tackles . Under coach Ray Eliot , Illinois finished the season with a 6 – 4 win - loss record . Agase was named an All - America n after the season . Agase entered the U . S . military in 1943 as America ' s involvement in World War II intensified . He was sent to Purdue University for training in the U . S . Marines and played on the school ' s football team along with enlistees from other schools . Purdue had won just one Big Ten Conference game the previous year , but the influx of trainees including Agase led to a reversal of fortune in 1943 . Coached by Elmer Burnham , the Purdue Boilermakers won all of their games that year and were named Big Ten co - champions . Agase was again named an All - American . During the following two years , Agase served on active duty in the war . He participated in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa , where he received a Purple Heart after he was wounded in action . He rose to the rank of first lieutenant . Agase returned to Illinois in 1946 and rejoined a Fightining Illini team that posted an 8 – 2 record and was ranked fifth in the nation in the AP Poll at season ' s end . Illinois beat the University of California , Los Angeles in the Rose Bowl Game after the season . Agase was named an All - American for a third time , and received the Chicago Tribune Silver Football as the most valuable player in the Big Ten . Professional football career . Agase had been selected by the Green Bay Packers in the 1944 NFL Draft , but military service delayed his professional career . Although Green Bay still held the rights to him when he graduated from college , Agase instead signed in 1947 with the Los Angeles Dons of the new All - America Football Conference ( AAFC ) . Agase , however , played just three games for the Dons before he was traded in September 1947 to the Chicago Rockets , another AAFC team . The Rockets finished the season in last place in the AAFC ' s western division with a 1 – 13 record . The Rockets traded Agase and fellow lineman Chubby Grigg the following year to the Cleveland Browns , who had won the AAFC championship in each of the league ' s first two years of play . Led by quarterback Otto Graham , fullback Marion Motley and ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie , Cleveland won the championship again in 1948 , posting a perfect 14 – 0 record and beating the Buffalo Bills in the title game . Another championship followed in 1949 , but the AAFC then dissolved and the Browns , along with two other teams , were absorbed by the NFL . Helped by a strong offensive line including Agase , center Frank Gatski and tackles Lou Groza and Lou Rymkus , Cleveland won the NFL championship in 1950 . The team reached the NFL championship in 1951 but lost to the Los Angeles Rams . Cleveland lost 24 – 17 despite gaining more yards and more first downs than the Rams . " It was a very disappointing loss , " Agase later said . " We weren ' t quite as sharp as we normally were on offense . " Coaching career . Before the 1952 season , the Browns traded Agase to the Dallas Texans , a newly formed team set to start play that year . He ended his playing career and signed as a line coach with the Texans under head coach Jim Phelan . The Texans finished with a 1 – 11 record and folded after the season . Agase came out of retirement briefly after the Texans disbanded , joining the Baltimore Colts and playing as a linebacker for the 1953 season . The Colts finished the season with a 3 – 9 record , placing fifth in the NFL West division . Iowa State and Northwestern . Agase was offered a job as an assistant coach for the Colts , but instead joined Iowa State University as its line coach in early 1954 on a $ 7 , 000 - a - year salary . He and Iowa head coach Vince DiFrancesca had played football together in high school . After two seasons at Iowa , he signed as defensive line coach at Northwestern University . He worked under head coach Ara Parseghian , a former Cleveland teammate . In seven years under Parseghian at Northwestern , Agase rose to become the coach ' s top assistant . When Parseghian was offered the head coaching job at the University of Notre Dame at the end of 1963 , he recommended Agase as his replacement . Agase got the job immediately after Parseghian left . Agase ' s first years as coach of the Northwestern Wildcats football team were unsuccessful . The team had losing records each season between 1964 and 1969 . In 1970 , however , the team finished with a 6 – 4 record , taking second place in the Big Ten Conference , and Agase was named the national coach of the year by the Football Writers Association of America . The Wildcats followed up with a 7 – 4 record in 1971 , but fell to 2 – 9 in 1972 . Purdue . After nine seasons as the Northwestern coach , Agase accepted an offer at the end of 1972 to become head football coach at Purdue , one of the two schools for which he played . Taking the job was " not an easy decision to make , " he said at the time , because he was happy at Northwestern . Agase coached at Purdue through the 1976 season , but his team never posted a winning record in his years there . He was fired in early 1977 and took a job as athletic director at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti , Michigan . He stayed in that job until 1982 , when he unexpectedly resigned citing " personal reasons " . Later life and death . Agase remained active in college football by assisting Bo Schembechler as a volunteer at the University of Michigan until 1987 , focusing on special teams . He was named to the Walter Camp Foundation all - century team in 1989 and the University of Illinois all - century team in 1990 . Agase was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1963 . He died in 2007 at a hospital near his home in Tarpon Springs , Florida . Head coaching record . Source : College Football Data Warehouse