Promising "colorful" and “imaginative” game plans to come, Eugene Francis “Buddy” Teevens III beamed at film crews and reporters in the auditorium of Stanford’s Arrillaga Family Sports Center January 9 as he held up a team jersey with the number 02 on it. Donning the shirt, Teevens became the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football, i.e., Stanford’s 31st head football coach.
“Of all the coaches I’ve ever hired, I don’t know [when] I’ve seen a better fit,” said athletics director Ted Leland, PhD ’83.
Teevens was tapped nine days after Tyrone Willingham accepted an offer from the University of Notre Dame, becoming that school’s first black head coach. In seven years at Stanford, Willingham compiled a 44-36-1 record. He took the Cardinal to four bowl games, including the 2000 Rose Bowl, and he never lost a Big Game. Willingham’s record last season was 9-3, including a 24-14 loss to Georgia Tech at the inaugural Seattle Bowl in December.
“In many quarters, [Willingham] was thought of more as a professor of football than as a coach,” former University President Donald Kennedy wrote January 5 in the New York Times.
“Tyrone has done a wonderful job,” Teevens said. “We expect to carry on the tradition that he’s established.”
The 45-year-old Teevens comes to Stanford with 23 years of college coaching experience, including head coaching jobs at the University of Maine, Dartmouth College and Tulane University. Most recently he was assistant offensive coordinator at the University of Florida, where he accompanied the Gators to four bowl games.
Teevens, Leland joked, is an FOT (friend of Ted’s). Leland hired him at Dartmouth in 1987, and Teevens won two Ivy League titles in his five years there. At Tulane, Teevens had a less successful run and was dropped as a result of his 10-45 record.
“I would not recommend the firing process to anyone,” he quipped in response to a reporter’s question about his tenure in New Orleans. Relaxed and grinning broadly, Teevens clearly enjoyed his first day on the job and his introduction to Bay Area media. “This is an easy crowd,” he lobbed when the questions lagged, and he vowed that football on the Farm would be “lots of fun and enjoyable to watch.” He frequently gestured to his wife, Kirsten, and two teenage children, Lindsay and Eugene IV, and said he and his family were “ecstatic to be here.” Teevens has signed a five-year contract for an undisclosed salary.
The new coach suggested that he will develop a more aggressive defense and implement the wide-open passing attack that characterized the Gators’ game. That drew an enthusiastic “Perfect!” from quarterback Chris Lewis, ’03, who predicted, “We’re going to be throwing the ball a lot.”
Teevens has a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth, where he lettered in football and ice hockey. He was named Ivy League Player of the Year when he quarterbacked the Big Green to the league title in 1978.
