Miami of Ohio: The Cradle of Coaches

From an interview this week with New Orleans Coach Sean Payton talking about Miami University in Ohio. It should be a well known fact that Miami of Ohio not only produced the infamous Super Bowl QB Ben Roethlisberger, but also many excellent coaches including Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.

Question: With Mike Shanahan coming back, Eastern Illinois now has three head coaches. Eric Mangini’s alma mater has only two. Has Eastern Illinois supplanted Wesleyan as the intellectual center of the football universe?

Payton: “We have a lot of Miami of Ohio coaches here who claim that’s still the cradle of coaching. I think more than anything else there’s some coincidence to it. If Mike Heimerdinger were to get going here he’d be the fourth head coach from Eastern. We pull for him at Tennessee. That was good learning grounds for all of us that went there and had a chance to play there and certainly advance our careers. I’m not too familiar with Wesleyan.”