Stub Allison Leonard Blaine " Stub " Allison ( November 15 , 1892 – December 12 , 1961 ) was an American football , basketball , and baseball coach . He served as the head football coach at the University of Washington ( 1920 ) , the University of South Dakota ( 1922 – 1926 ) , at the University of California , Berkeley ( 1935 – 1944 ) , compiling a career college football record of 80 – 66 – 5 . At California , Allison amassed a 58 – 42 – 2 record . In 1937 and 1938 , he guided the Bears to back - to - back ten - win seasons , the only such occurrence in school history . His 1937 squad , dubbed the " Thunder Team " , won the 1938 Rose Bowl , was named the national champions by a number of selectors , and is considered by some sportswriters to have been the best team in school history . While at Washington , Allison also coached the baseball team , in 1920 and 1921 , and the basketball team , in 1920 . Early life . Allison was born in Mazeppa , Minnesota and raised in Anoka , Minnesota by Alexander J . & Elizabeth Hauxhurst Allison . He attended Carleton College in Northfield , Minnesota , where he played football . He graduated from Carleton in 1917 . He also served for four years in the United States Army . Coaching career . In its obituary for Allison , " The Milwaukee Journal " called him a Knute Rockne disciple who mostly relied on the single - wing offense . Allison ' s first coaching experience came on the staff of his former college coach Claude J . Hunt , at the University of Washington in 1919 . The following season , he took over as head coach , and his team amassed a 1 – 5 record . At Washington , Allison also spent time as the head coach of the baseball and basketball teams . In 1920 , he led the basketball team to a 7 – 8 record , and in 1920 and 1921 , he led the baseball team to 7 – 4 – 1 and 8 – 4 records , respectively . Allison served as head coach at the University of South Dakota from 1922 to 1926 and compiled a 21 – 19 – 3 mark . He then moved on to the University of Wisconsin , where he was the head boxing instructor , football line coach , and assistant athletic director from 1927 until 1931 . That year , he went to the University of California , Berkeley to take a position as an assistant football coach . He became the head coach at California for the 1935 season . The " ESPN College Football Encyclopedia " rates the 1937 California team as the best in school history . Allison led the " Thunder Team " ( a play on California ' s " Wonder Teams " of the 1920s ) to the Rose Bowl , where they defeated Alabama , 13 – 0 , to finish with a 10 – 0 – 1 record . ESPN noted that team relied on " power runs and a nasty , opportunistic defense that allowed only 33 points and shut out seven teams . " Allison ' s final record at California was 58 – 42 – 2 . Aside from being named national champions in 1937 , under Allison , California captured a share of the Pacific Coast Conference title in 1935 and 1938 , and outright in 1937 . In April 1945 , after Allison declined the opportunity to resign , California notified him that they would not renew his expiring contract . " The Pittsburgh Press " noted that after peaking in 1937 , " five dismal years were climaxed last fall " in 1944 , and that his firing was " no surprise since it was well known that an influential alumni bloc was lobbying against him on grounds that he shackled good material with a dull offense . " Later life . From about 1946 until his death , Allison was the director of industrial relations at the Oakland Naval Supply Center . Allison died on December 12 , 1961 in the Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland , California hospital , to which he had been confined for three weeks because of a heart ailment . He was 69 years old and survived by his wife Ethyl .