Blanton Collier

Blanton Long Collier (July 2, 1906 – March 22, 1983) was an American football coach. He coached at the University of Kentucky between 1954 and 1961 and for the Cleveland Browns in the National Football League (NFL) between 1963 and 1970. His 1964 Browns team won the NFL championship. They are the second-most recent Cleveland professional sports team to win a title.

Collier grew up in Paris, Kentucky. He was a student at Paris High School. After graduating from Georgetown College, he returned to his old high school to teach and coach sports for 16 years. Collier left the position to join the U.S. Navy in 1943 during World War II. At a naval base outside of Chicago, he met Paul Brown. Brown was coaching a football team there. After the war, Brown hired Collier as an assistant coach for the Browns. The Browns were a new team in the All-America Football Conference. He coached for seven years with the Browns as Brown's assistant coach. The team won five league championships during that time. Collier then took a job as head football coach at the University of Kentucky in 1954. His Kentucky Wildcats teams had a 41–36–3 win-loss-tie record during his eight seasons there.

Collier was fired after the 1961 season. Brown rehired him as an assistant coach. Art Modell, the owner of the Browns, then fired Brown in 1963. He made Collier the head coach. With Collier as coach, the Browns reached the NFL championship game four times and won once, in 1964. In eight seasons as a professional football coach with the Browns, they never had a losing season. They won 69% of the games he coached, one of the highest winning percentages in NFL history for coaches with at least 100 games coached. He ranks among the top ten on that list. Struggling with hearing loss, Collier retired as head coach after the 1970 season. He was a scout and quarterbacks coach for several more years. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1976, and retired to Texas, where he died in 1983.

Collier was well-liked by players. The Kentucky chapter of the NFL Players Association in 2007 made the Blanton Collier Award in his honor. The Paris High School football field is named after him.

References

Category:1906 births
Category:1983 deaths
Category:National Football League coaches
Category:Cleveland Browns
Category:People from Paris, Kentucky
Category:Deaths from prostate cancer
Category:College football coaches