Sidney Gillman (October 26, 1911 – January 3, 2003) was an American football player, coach and executive. Gillman's insistence on stretching the football field by throwing deep downfield passes, instead of short passes to running backs or wide receivers at the sides of the line of scrimmage, was instrumental in making football into the modern game that it is today. He was inducted as a coach into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983, and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989.
Gillman played football as an end at Ohio State University from 1931 to 1933. He played professionally for one season in 1936 with the Cleveland Rams of the second American Football League. After serving as an assistant coach at Ohio State from 1938 to 1940, Gillman was the head football coach at Miami University from 1944 to 1947 and at the University of Cincinnati from 1949 to 1954, compiling a career college football record of 81–19–2. He then moved to the ranks of professional football, where he headed the NFL's Los Angeles Rams (1955–1959), the American Football League's Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers (1960–1969), and the NFL's Houston Oilers (1973–1974), amassing a career record of 123–104–7 in the National Football League and the American Football League. Gillman's 1963 San Diego Chargers won the AFL Championship.
Early life and playing career Sidney Gillman was born on October 26, 1911, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to a Jewish family. His father was an Austrian immigrant who was in the movie theater business. He attended North High School, and was elected captain of his high school football team in his senior year, and played on a state All-Star team.
He played college football at Ohio State University under coach Sam Willaman, forming the basis of his offense. Gillman was not impressed by Willaman's coaching ability. Gillman was an All-American at end in 1932 and 1933. He was a team co-captain on the 1933 team, and All-Big Ten Conference end in 1933. Gillman played in the first Chicago All-Star Game (1934) with the college All-Stars playing against the NFL champion Chicago Bears, where he was flattened by Bears legend Bronko Nagurski.
While attending Ohio State, Gillman was a brother of the Nu chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, living in the fraternity house for three years at college. He played piano in small bands during his college years to make extra money (including one called the Red Hot Peppers). He was a political science major. Gillman debated between pursuing a pro football career and entering coaching upon leaving college, with the Boston Redskins offering him a contract while Willaman wished to hire him as end coach at Western Reserve University. His participation in the inaugural Chicago College All-Star Game caused him to arrive late for Redskins training camp, and he would fail to make the team. He played one year in the American Football League (1936) for the Cleveland Rams.
Coaching career College football coach Gillman was a college football assistant coach for eight years before becoming a head coach. Gilman became an assistant coach at Ohio State under College Football Hall of Fame head coach Francis Schmidt (1934, 1938-40); Denison University under Tom Rogers (1935-37, 1941); and Miami University (Ohio) under Stu Holcomb.
Ohio State At his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction, Gillman stated that Schmidt made a "definite contribution to [Gillman's] life". Gillman considered Schmidt an offensive football genius, ahead of his time, and the greatest coach ever. Schmidt's number of plays and formations far exceeded his contemporaries, and he instituted a wide-open high scoring offense, extremely unusual for the 1930s (outside of the Southwest Conference), which also was a boon to the school growing its attendance during the Great Depression. However, Schmidt's pursuit of high scoring, even in lop-sided games, resulted in his nickname being, Francis "Shut the Gates of Mercy" or "Close the Gates of Mercy" Schmidt. Gilman's own offensive system as a coach was born under Schmidt's influence.
Army In 1948, after having started his head coaching career, he once more became an assistant coach, serving as the line coach under hall of fame head coach Earl Blaik of Army. He learned "situational substitution" (the platoon system) from Blaik, while teaching an innovative option blocking system to his players. While at Army he befriended future hall of fame coaching great Vince Lombardi, who was an assistant coach at Fordham, with whom he discussed football strategy for hours at a time. Upon leaving Army, Gillman successfully recommended Lombardi as his replacement. Lombardi would use Gillman's blocking scheme to great effect as coach of the Green Bay Packers' championship teams. Lombardi also implemented Gillman's method of film study and player grades with those teams.
Miami University and University of Cincinnati In 1944, Gillman became head coach at Miami University, succeeding Holcomb, and coached there through 1947, where his record was 31–6–1. Among his players was Ara Parseghian, a future College Football Hall of Fame coach at Miami, Northwestern and Notre Dame. After a year at Army under Blaik, Gillman became head coach at the University of Cincinnati from 1949 to 1954, with a record of 50–13–1, three Mid-American Conference championships, and two bowl games; while making full use of situational substitution. He used film study and player grades at Cincinnati, and was once admonished by the NCAA for having the players review film during halftime of a game.
At the time he left Cincinnati, it was written that Gillman had a forceful, confident and determined personality; was impatient with mistakes, the hardest working coach, a perfectionist, aimed to succeed at the highest level; and could run up the score like Schmidt. There was a division between those who admired him and those who criticized him. Altogether, he spent 21 years as a college assistant coach or head coach, and his teams' total record as a head coach for these years was 81-19-2. As a college head coach, his teams outscored their opponents 2,571–1,017.
Professional football coach
Los Angeles Rams He became a professional head coach for the first time with the Los Angeles Rams in 1955, after the team had declined in wins the previous two seasons (8–3–1 in 1953 and 6–5–1 in 1954). The Rams were a team bolstered and hindered by its emphasis on explosive offense as quarterbacked by Norm Van Brocklin. A trade for Jim Cason with the San Francisco 49ers also proved helpful in the rookie season that saw Gillman's coaching described as "red-meat, un-finessed brand of football" on the way to a record of 8–3–1 that narrowly beat the Chicago Bears for the right to play for the 1955 NFL Championship Game (their fourth appearance in the past five seasons) against the defending league champion Cleveland Browns, appearing in their sixth straight NFL Championship Game. Playing at home in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum due to the rotation of the time, the Browns never trailed while forcing six Van Brocklin interceptions on their way to a 38–14 victory.
His second season with the Rams, which saw them trade away future Hall of Fame defensive star Andy Robustelli in the offseason after a falling out with Gillman, was a disaster, as the team lost eight of their first ten games and ended with a 4–8 overall record, their first losing mark since 1944 when the team was still in Cleveland. The 1957 season was the last for both Van Brocklin (traded to Philadelphia after the season, where he would win a championship in 1960 over Lombardi's Packers) and receiver Elroy Hirsch, each future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Van Brocklin and Gillman had clashed over tactics in 1957, and Van Brocklin would at times override Gillman. After that season, Van Brocklin demanded a trade or he would stay home and run his business, rather than join the team for the 1958 season. Hirsch retired after the 1957 season.
A multi-player deal with the Cardinals for Ollie Matson did not help matters. The season ended on a middling note as the Rams won their last two games of the year to finish at .500. The 1958 season was the closest the Rams got to the top of the division, finishing one game behind the Baltimore Colts. The 1959 season saw the Rams close the year with eight straight losses that led to Gillman‘s dismissal.
The AFL and the Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers Gillman then moved to the American Football League (AFL, 1960–1969), where he coached the Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers to five Western Division titles and one league championship in the first six years of the AFL's existence. Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams (Gillman's future boss and nemesis) created the AFL after they were excluded from owning NFL teams, and 1960 was the AFL's first year of existence. Gilman would coach the Chargers for the AFL's entire independent duration, before it merged into the NFL in 1970. Steve Sabol of NFL Films said "'Lamar Hunt is the George Washington of the AFL. Sid Gillman is the Thomas Jefferson.'"
His greatest coaching success came after he was persuaded by Barron Hilton, then the Chargers' majority owner, to become the head coach of the AFL franchise he planned to operate in Los Angeles. When the team's general manager, Frank Leahy, became ill during the Chargers' founding season, its one season in Los Angeles before moving to San Diego, Gillman took on additional responsibilities as general manager. As the first coach of the Chargers, Gillman gave the team a mercurial personality that matched his own.
It was with the Chargers that Gillman developed the innovative aggressive downfield passing attack for which he would become known, and which would change football. Gillman used the length and width of the field, and would stretch the field with the potential long pass, which opened up the middle of the field to runs and shorter passes. As described by one of Gillman's first Chargers' offensive coaches, and future owner of the Oakland Raiders, Hall of Famer Al Davis, "Sid Gillman was the father of modern-day passing.... It had been thought of as vertical, the length of the field, but Sid also thought of it as horizontal. Sid used the width of the field." Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh, who is usually identified with developing the West Coast Offense, stated much of what he did derived from Gillman. Walsh observed that Gilman had a level of understanding about football that only a few could fully comprehend.
Gillman had much to do with the AFL being able to establish itself as a genuine competitor to the NFL, and a viable football league. Gillman was a thorough professional, and in order to compete with him, his peers had to learn pro ways and how to respond to his innovative offensive concepts and their implementation. Opposing AFL coach Joe Collier said "'Everybody had to work like hell to keep up with him..." They learned, and the AFL became the genesis of modern professional football.
"Sid Gillman brought class to the AFL," Oakland Raiders managing general partner Al Davis once said of the man he served under on that first Chargers team. "Just being part of Sid's organization was like going to a laboratory for the highly developed science of professional football." Others however, painted Gillman as someone who kept the team under pressure at all times regardless of how it felt for the players, with Dickie Post, a running back who played for Gillman from 1967-69, calling him a "dictator". On the other hand, Chargers receiver and tight end Dave Kocourek (1960-65) found Gillman a people person who was not given proper credit for his interpersonal skills. Future Hall of Fame receiver Lance Alworth said of Gillman, "Sid Gillman is a fantastic person, with a brilliant mind, and he has taught John [Hadl] a lot."