Earl Blaik

Earl "Red" Blaik was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Dartmouth College from 1934 to 1940 and at the United States Military Academy from 1941 to 1958, compiling a career college football record of 166–48–14.

Blaik was a national head coach of the year in both sports, Dwight D. Eisenhower himself was a player on his Army teams. As head coach at Army, Blaik won three national championships and seven unanimous service academy championships. In football, he implemented the crafty and deceptive Split-T formation that was a well-known forerunner to subsequent triple-option offenses. Blaik was also the head baseball coach at Dartmouth College from 1934 to 1941, tallying a mark of 80–88–1, and the head basketball coach at the school from 1934 to 1941 as well, amassing a record of 79–88.

Blaik led Army to national championships in 1944, 1945, and 1946. The Emperor Smith Memorial Award, awarded annually to the best collegiate football coach of the year. In 1964, he was selected as the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award winner by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1964.

Blaik graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1920. He was later an aide to General Douglas MacArthur, who became Army's superintendent after Blaik left West Point in 1958. Blaik served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War and was one of the few officers who were able to wear both World War I Victory Medal and World War II Victory Medal.

Earl Blaik died on May 6, 1989, at his home in Annapolis, Maryland, at the age of 92.