Former UCLA football coach Terry Donahue dies at 77 after cancer battle.
Terry Donahue, the winningest coach in Pacific-12 Conference and UCLA football history, passed away Sunday evening at his home in Newport Beach, surrounded by family, following a two-year battle with cancer. He was 77.
“There aren’t enough words to properly honor Terry Donahue and what he means to the Bruin family and anyone who has had the pleasure of knowing him,” current UCLA football coach Chip Kelly said in a release. “He epitomizes everything you strive to be as a coach and as a human being. Since the moment I stepped on campus, he’s been an incredible mentor and one of the most authentic, humble and toughest men I’ve ever met.
“He loved UCLA with all he had, and I can’t express how important his guidance and friendship has been for me. He is an irreplaceable representation of the BRUIN WAY. We will always love and play for TD.”
Donahue devoted the majority of his adult life to championing UCLA after enrolling at the school as a walk-on defensive lineman. In his first season (1965) in Westwood as a student-athlete, the 190-pound lineman helped lead the Bruins to the program’s first-ever Rose Bowl victory with an upset of previously unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Michigan State. He went on to serve as an assistant coach for the Bruins under Pepper Rodgers and Dick Vermeil and then took over the reigns as UCLA’s head coach, at age 31, beginning with the 1976 season.
Donahue, the first person to appear in a Rose Bowl Game as a player, assistant coach and head coach, went on to post a conference-record 98 wins (98-51-5) and a school-record 151 wins (151-74-8). In a 20-year span, he won or shared five conference titles (1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1993) while finishing first or second in the league standings 12 times. The Bruins captured wins in three Rose Bowls (1983, 1984, 1986) during his tenure and he became the first college coach to come away with bowl game victories in seven consecutive seasons (1983 Rose Bowl, 1984 Rose Bowl, 1985 Fiesta Bowl, 1986 Rose Bowl, 1986 Freedom Bowl, 1987 Aloha Bowl, 1989 Cotton Bowl), including four New Year’s Day wins in a row. Donahue’s Bruins recorded seven straight top-20 finishes in the final Associated Press football poll from 1982-88.
During his 20-year head coaching reign, Donahue’s Bruins teams produced 40 wins over ranked opponents culminating with his final coaching victory, a 2420 decision in the Coliseum over No. 11 USC in 1995. He posted a 10-9-1 career ledger in battles against the crosstown rivals. Donahue’s UCLA teams yielded 34 first-team All-America team selections, a list featuring some of the top performers in school history — linebackers Jerry Robinson, Carnell Lake and Ken Norton Jr., safeties Kenny Easley and Eric Turner, running back Freeman McNeil, kicker John Lee, quarterback Troy Aikman, and lineman Jonathan Ogden. Fourteen of Donahue’s Bruins were chosen in the firstround of the NFL draft, including future Pro Football Hall of Famers Aikman, Easley and Ogden.
Donahue himself was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2000.
After leaving the field following the 1995 season, Donahue pursued a career in broadcasting and in professional football administration. He worked broadcast assignments for CBS Sports and FOX around stints in the front office of the San Francisco 49ers. Donahue was the director of player personnel from 1999-2000 in San Francisco and then served as the general manager of the 49ers from 2001-2005.
Coach John Wooden once recognized Donahue’s devotion to the UCLA community, saying, “I believe that a head coach, particularly at UCLA, should be judged by his or her peers within the university community-at-large as to whether the student-athletes with whom the coach was entrusted become not only excellent athletes but also, and more importantly, better students and better all-around individuals … There is no doubt in my mind that Terry Donahue deserves the recognition of having achieved that very ethereal form of success.”
Donahue is survived by Andrea, his wife of 52 years, daughters Nicole, Michele and Jennifer, three sons-inlaw and 10 grandchildren.
A private service is planned for family, and a Celebration of Life will be scheduled at a later date.