TOMMY O’BOYLE
Football Coach and Athletics Director, 1947-48
Inducted February 10, 1990

Coach Tommy O’Boyle was only with the grid Bears two seasons but posted the best winning percentage of all the 16 men who have guided the SMSU grid program.  O’Boyle’s two teams were 16-4-1 overall and his 1948 team shared the MIAA with a 3-1-1 league mark.  SMSU improved to 9-2 in ’48, losing 14-13 to Northwest Missouri and then sharing the league crown with the Bearcats.  The Bears’ only other loss was a 34-20 decision to Emporia State in the MO-KAN Bowl Game, SMSU’s first-ever post-season game in football.  Coach O’Boyle also served as the director of athletics the two years he was at SMSU.  O’Boyle came to SMSU following a standout career as a player at Tulane University, and was a grid assistant at Kansas State, Duke and Miami before returning to Tulane as an assistant.  He was Tulane’s head coach from 1962 to 1965 and then began a stint of some 20 years with the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League, serving as an assistant coach and talent scout.