From the Bobby Dodd Foundation...
ATLANTA (December 30, 2016) – Officials from the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl today announced that Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre has been named the winner of the 2016 Dodd Trophy.
Presented annually by the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, The Dodd Trophy, college football’s most coveted coaching award, honors the head football coach whose program embodies the award’s three pillars of scholarship, leadership and integrity, while also having success on the playing field throughout the season. Coach MacIntyre now joins an elite list of former recipients of the award, which includes his father, the late George MacIntyre, who won the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award in 1982.
“We are honored to have a second MacIntyre join the prestigious list of Dodd Trophy winners,” said Jim Terry, chairman of the Dodd Foundation. “Colorado’s unparalleled turnaround under Coach MacIntyre’s guidance was one of the more remarkable storylines of this season, but it’s his leadership and commitment to both his players and community off the field, that truly embodies the spirit and legacy of Coach Dodd.”
“I’m honored to receive this award on behalf of the University of Colorado. Our football team and our coaching staff have done a phenomenal job this year. This award is very personal to me, my dad won this award and I also got to know coach Dodd when I was playing at Georgia Tech, so I am honored and blessed to kind of follow in my dad’s footsteps. It is a very special award for me personally since my dad won it.”
Coach MacIntyre has crafted an approach to coaching college football that incorporates “The Four F’s” – Foundation, Family, Future and Football. He believes that if Colorado’s student-athletes focus on the Four F’s, it will lead to success. Under MacIntyre, OLB Derek McCartney was named to the 2016 Allstate AFCA Good Works team, the most coveted off-the-field honor in the sport, as it recognizes and celebrates those who dedicate their time to bettering the community and lives of others.
The Colorado team has seen success in the classroom as well under Coach MacIntyre’s leadership, boasting a notable Academic Progress Rate score of 968 last year. In 2016, five Buffaloes were honored on the Pac-12 Conference Football All-Academic teams, which brought the two year total for the program to 13 honorees.
In the community, Coach MacIntyre initiated his staff and players to take part in the Be The Match Organization. The group matches patients suffering from life-threatening blood disorders with healthy donors as part of the National Marrow Donor program. He and his wife, Trisha, help raise awareness of ovarian cancer. In honor of National Ovarian Cancer Month this past September, they hosted the first Hike For Her Event, which was inspired after Trisha lost her mother to ovarian cancer in November 2015. The event helped fund research that is on the cusp of major breakthroughs in battling the disease.
“We’re proud to present college football’s most prestigious coaching award and strongly believe in the foundation of what it represents,” added Gary Stokan, president and CEO of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. “Coach MacIntyre has learned well from his father, George, and he has long exhibited the ideals that are representative of Coach Dodd – scholarship, leadership and integrity – so we are honored to recognize him and the impact he has had on his student-athletes and in the Boulder community.”
On the field, Coach MacIntyre has orchestrated one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history. In the past three years, the Buffaloes went a combined 2-25 in conference play, finishing last in the Pac-12 South each of those seasons. Under Coach MacIntyre’s leadership this year, Colorado clinched its first winning season since 2005 and its 10 wins are the most since 2001. The Buffaloes won the Pac-12 South and earned a berth in the Pac-12 Championship Game for the first time since joining the conference in 2011. Colorado was ranked No. 10 in the final College Football Playoff rankings.
Five of the nation’s top head coaches (Paul Chryst, P.J. Fleck, Mike MacIntyre, Ken Niumatalolo and Chris Petersen) were named finalists for this year’s award by a panel consisting of all previous winners, national media, a member of the Dodd family and a College Football Hall of Fame member. Coach MacIntyre was selected as this year’s recipient by the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation.
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About The Dodd TrophyThe Dodd Trophy was established in 1976 to honor the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1A) head football coach whose program represents the highest ideals on and off the field. The award honors the coach of a team which enjoys a successful football season, while also stressing the importance of academic excellence and character, as did Coach Dodd’s teams during his 22 years as head football coach of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Coach Dodd remains one of college football’s legendary figures, both as a coach and a player. Coach Dodd was a native of Galax, Virginia, and played his college ball at the University of Tennessee where his team had 27 wins, one loss and two ties during the three years he played. Coach Dodd was selected to the National College Football Hall of Fame both as a coach and as a player. Additional information about the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation can be found at www.TheDoddTrophy.com. For news, updates and insider information, follow us on Twitter at @DoddTrophy or find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/DoddTrophy.
