Rodgers was a quarterback and placekicker for Georgia Tech. After the Yellow Jackets won the Sugar Bowl and earned a share of the national championship in 1952, they again won the bowl game the following year, when he was named the contest's most valuable player (MVP). Rodgers began coaching as an assistant for the Air Force Falcons and later the Florida Gators and UCLA. He became a head coach with Kansas in 1967, and later returned to UCLA and then Georgia Tech as their leader. He compiled a career college coaching record of 73–65–3.[1]
Moving to the professional ranks, Rodgers coached two seasons in the 1980s with the Memphis Showboats in the USFL and one season for the CFL's Memphis Mad Dogs. In the 2000s, he served as vice president of football operations for the Washington Redskins in the National Football League (NFL) before retiring.
Playing career
Rodgers was born in Atlanta,[2] where he became a three-sport star in football, basketball and baseball at Brown High School. His football team won a state championship in 1949.[1]
Rodgers was selected in the 12th round of the 1954 NFL draft by the Baltimore Colts,[1] but remained at Georgia Tech for a year, earning a BS degree in industrial management while also serving as a student assistant on Dodd's staff.[5] In 1955 he joined the U.S. Air Force,[5] where he was a pilot for five years.[1]
While with the Air Force, Rodgers was an assistant coach for their Falcons football team. He was later an assistant for Florida and UCLA before landing his first head coaching position with Kansas in 1967.[1] In his second year with the Jayhawks in 1968, he led the team to a share of the Big Eight Conference title.[6][7]As of 2021[update], this is the program's most recent conference championship.[8] They played in the Orange Bowl in Miami, but lost 15–14 to Penn State.[9]
Rodgers returned to UCLA as its head coach in 1971.[2] Competing in the Pac-8 Conference, he installed the wishbone offense and with junior college transfer quarterback Mark Harmon in 1972, the Bruins upset top-ranked and two-time defending champion Nebraska in the season opener, snapping the Huskers' 32-game unbeaten streak.[10][11] UCLA finished 8–3 and ranked No. 15 in the final AP rankings.[12] In 1973 they were 9–2 and ended ranked No. 12.[13] After the season, he returned to Georgia Tech as its head coach, compiling a 34–31–2 record in his six seasons.[1]
At 69, Rodgers was considered for the Washington Redskins' head coaching position before Norv Turner's eventual firing during the 2000 season.[17][18] He was instead appointed the team's vice president of football operations, a position in which he served from 2001 to 2004.[18][19][20]
Writing career
Rodgers wrote Fourth and Long Gone, a novel published in 1985 that is a bawdy roman à clef of his experiences as a college football coach and recruiter.[1] He also wrote Pepper!: The autobiography of an unconventional coach with Al Thomy.[21]
Later years
Rodgers later lived in Reston, Virginia,[22] where he died on May 14, 2020, at the age of 88.[23]
^Haskin, Kevin (July 23, 2009). "Column: Huskers right pick in North". The Topeka Capital-Journal. Retrieved May 15, 2020. The year Kansas fans could finally quit referencing Pepper Rodgers, Bobby Douglass and John Zook while reminiscing about 1968, the last time a conference trophy in football was hoisted atop Oread. (Division ties, like the one KU achieved in 2007, don't really count if left out of the conference title game.)
^ abMaske, Mark (December 1, 2004). "This is familiar territory fo [sic] ..."The Washington Post. Retrieved May 15, 2020. They contemplated giving it to longtime college coach Pepper Rodgers, but were talked out of it and instead gave Rodgers a front-office position.
^Maske, Mark (December 5, 2000). "Redskins Change Coaches, Hoping to Still Make Playoffs". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 15, 2020. In an overall shake-up of the organization, the Redskins also named longtime college coach Pepper Rodgers their vice president of football operations and fired special teams coach LeCharls McDaniel, giving that job to tight ends coach Pat Flaherty.
^Lipsyte, Robert (December 5, 1976). "Sports". the New York Times. Retrieved May 15, 2020. Iconography with a twist is served up in PEPPER (Doubleday, $7.95) by Pepper Rodgers and Al Thorny an often comical autobiography of the shrewdly zany Georgia Tech football coach, and in JOE NAMATH AND THE OTHER GUYS (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, $7.95).
