Delaware icon Raymond dead at 92
“That’s your No. 1 rival and he drives up and spends two hours out of his day to bask in the success of us going off to a national championship. That’s the kind of guy he was, a true gentleman.” — Former Villanova coach Andy Talley on former Delaware coach Tubby Raymond, who died on Friday
Andy Talley and Harold R. “Tubby” Raymond had more than a few epic battles during the 14 years their careers overlapped as the respective football coaches at Villanova and Delaware.
Raymond got the better of Talley, winning eight of the 14 meetings, but Talley won five of the last six, including Raymond’s last game as the head coach of the Blue Hens in 2001.
And while the rivalry was contentious at times, it never became a blood feud because Talley and Raymond did not let that happen.
“I always had respect for Tubby from Day 1,” said Talley, who retired following the 2016 season after 32 years as the head coach of the Wildcats. “It’s just that he was king of the hill and Villanova was trying to come in and get restarted again. I knew him prior to coming to Villanova and it was one of those things where the rivalry grabs you by the throat and you get caught up in it.
“But we turned it into a rivalry of respect and good sportsmanship, which is really what it should have been all along, even though it did get down and dirty at times.”
Raymond, who won 300 games and three national championships in his time at Delaware, died Friday. He was 92 and suffered complications after injuring his leg in a fall several months ago, according to the The News-Journal of Wilmington, Del.
“We lost a great one today,” Talley said.
Raymond came to Delaware to be the backfield coach under Dave Nelson in 1954. He spent 12 years as an assistant before assuming the head coaching duties in 1966. He went 6-3 in his first season and only had four losing campaigns in 36 years as the head coach.
During that time Raymond compiled a record of 300-119-8, won three Division II national championships and reached the Division I-AA (now FCS) playoffs 11 times when the team moved up to that classification in 1980.
Delaware was voted as small college national champions by the wire services in 1971 and 1972, and beat Youngstown State to win the 1979 Division II title. The Blue Hens also reached the Division II final in 1974 and 1978.
Raymond guided the Blue Hens to the Division I-AA semifinals four times (1982, 1992, 1997 and 2000). His only trip to the final was a 17-14 loss to Eastern Kentucky in 1982. He retired following the 2001 season and was inducted into the college football Hall of Fame in 2003.
“He was an old-school, Bo Schembechler guy,” Talley said. “He was out of the Michigan mold. He played at Michigan and actually modernized the Wing-T from Dave Nelson. He made the Wing-T almost unstoppable when he plugged in the option and the read option and all the passing off of it. He really modernized a prolific style of offense.”
Off the field, Raymond was an avid artist who routinely painted portraits of the senior members of his football team long after he retired as the football coach. One of the many portraits he painted was of him and Talley, which had a prominent place in Talley’s office in Villanova Stadium for many years.
“It’s a beautiful, 16 x 20 portrait of he and I on the field,” Talley said. “I always say, that in typical Tubby fashion, he made himself look better than me. He looked more like Tubby Raymond than I did like Andy Talley. I don’t know if he did that on purpose or what.”
It did not take long for the Wildcats and Blue Hens to renew their rivalry when Talley was given the task of reviving the program in 1984. The series resumed in 1988 when the Wildcats joined the old Yankee Conference and the game quickly became one of the top rivalries in the league.
Of the 14 meetings between Raymond and Talley, seven were decided by a touchdown or less. Yet out of that rivalry a friendship developed. Raymond served as Delaware’s honorary captain for Talley’s last visit to Delaware Stadium in 2016. Delaware named Talley an honorable Blue Hen that day.
Yet Talley’s best memory of Raymond did not come from their many clashes, but the year the Wildcats won the FCS title in 2009.
Raymond had been retired for nine seasons, but he drove to Villanova with a friend the week of the national championship game to spend a few hours with the one-time rival who had become his friend.
“He congratulated me and said that he was pulling for Villanova and was very happy for the success that we had. That was incredible. That’s your No. 1 rival and he drives up and spends two hours out of his day to bask in the success of us going off to a national championship. That’s the kind of guy he was, a true gentleman.”