In Ivy League football, coaches can't go 1-9 and keep their jobs.
That was the message handed down by Dartmouth Athletic Director Josie Harper yesterday, as she fired Big Green football coach John Lyons. This marks the third straight year that an Ancient Eight football coach has been fired after a 1-9 season.
Last season, Cornell let go of coach Tim Pendergast after the Big Red went 1-9 overall and 0-7 in Ivy play. In 2002, Columbia fired Ray Tellier after his team finished with the same record.
This marks the second prominent head coach that has left the Big Green in Harper's one-year tenure. In February, Dartmouth basketball coach Dave Faucher announced his resignation, which took place at the end of the season.
"As difficult a decision as this was, it is a good time to make this move in order to change the direction of the program," Harper said in a statement. "John has had his share of success here and we appreciate all that he has done for the college, but, in the larger picture, we feel that this is in the best interest of Dartmouth football at this time."
Indeed, the Big Green had its fair share of success in its 13 years under Lyons. He won Ivy League titles in 1992 and 1996, and groomed arguably the Ivy League's best NFL prospect of the 1990s, Miami Dolphins quarterback Jay Fiedler.
But Lyons, 52, has not had a winning season since 1997.
His lone win this season was a 20-7 victory over Brown on Nov. 13.
Overall, the West Hartford, Conn., native was 60-68-1 in his tenure with Dartmouth, with a 43-50-1 record against Ancient Eight opponents.
Lyons started his college football career as an All-Ivy defensive back at Penn, graduating in 1974 with a degree in sociology. From 1974-1984 he served as an assistant for the Quakers, starting as assistant freshman coach and rising to defensive coordinator.
After spending three years as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach at Boston University, Lyons headed to Hanover, N.H., where he maintained the same coaching position.
In 1992, he was promoted to Dartmouth head coach, replacing Buddy Teevens.
Teevens, who was fired on Monday as head coach of Stanford, left Dartmouth in 1991 to become the head coach at Tulane.
According to a Dartmouth press release, a national search will now commence for Lyons' replacement.
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