Ray's Guys

Sean McDonnell

There's been a lot of talk lately about big-time college head coaches and how much they make.

There's also been a lot of talk about former Ivy League head coaches and assistants who have jumped to bigger venues in the BCS or the NFL.

One of the people I've mentioned lately is current Oregon HC Chip Kelly, who joined former Head Coach Ray Tellier's staff at Columbia in 1990.

But Tellier's first season at Columbia was 1989, and I wanted to look at his original staff and where they all are now:


Defensive line coach Tom Gilmore is currently the head coach at Holy Cross and has been a "hot candidate" for head coaching jobs in the Ivies for years now. To be fair, Gilmore was a holdover from previous Columbia Head Coach Larry MacElreavy's staff, but he was still a part of that coaching class of 1989.


Outside linebackers coach Sean McDonnell has achieved tremendous levels of success as the head coach at the University of New Hampshire. He followed Chip Kelly's path from Columbia to UNH, and who knows where he'll end up next?


Offensive line coach Jim Margraff has gone on to become the greatest football head coach in Johns Hopkins history. Margraff came over with Tellier to Columbia from the University of Rochester.

Speaking of Rochester, receivers coach Mark Kreydt was one of Tellier's players at UR and later went on to become the head coach there for eight years. He is now working in the insurance industry.

Running backs coach Joe White is now the head football coach at Rhodes College, a D-III school in Memphis.


Defensive coordinator Tom Radulski is now the head football coach at Bowdoin College. He was a teammate of Sean McDonnell's at UNH.


Erv Chambliss is currently a lacrosse head coach at Union college. Chambliss started as defensive backs coach with Tellier and eventually rose to defensive coordinator. It was Chambliss who crafted those great Lions defenses of 1994 and 1996. Coach Erv was always one of the staff members who the players most liked and respected.

Head freshman coach Steve Sorkin went on to Tim Murphy's staff at Harvard in 1994 and is now working in a corporate job in the Boston area.

The freshman defensive line coach Len Genova came to the coaching ranks after posting an All Ivy career as an offensive lineman at Columbia. Genova now works in a municipal job on Long Island, but he is very active in the National Football Foundation.










(and yes, today's post title is a play on words to honor the great punter Ray Guy).