Hall of Fame
Tommy Prothro was a winner all the way. He played
quarterback under Hall of Famer Wallace Wade at Duke,
and in 1941 won the Jacobs Award as the best blocker in
the Southern Conference. In 10 years at Oregon State he
had a 63-37-2 record, the best on the west coast. Moving
to UCLA in 1965, he coached there six years and went 41-
18-3. That made his overall record 104-55-5. He had two
Heisman winners, Terry Baker at Oregon State, 1962, and
Gary Beban at UCLA, 1967. After UCLA he moved to the
pros, with the Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers.
Prothro attended Central High School in Memphis and
Riverside Military Academy. He competed in football,
baseball, and lacrosse at Duke and graduated in 1942 with
a degree in political science. In the fall of 1942 he was
line coach at Western Kentucky. Prothro served 39 months
in the Navy; he was a lieutenant on an aircraft carrier.
He joined the staff of Red Sanders and was his assistant at
Vanderbilt 1946-48 and UCLA 1949-1954. When he
became head coach at Oregon State in 1955, the school
had just finished a 1-8 season, its worst in history. His
first team went 6-3. His next team was 7-3-1 and went to
the Rose Bowl. Prothro's 1962 team finished 9-2 and won the
Liberty Bowl from Villanova 6-0 on Terry Baker's 99-yard
run. He moved to UCLA in 1965, went 8-2-1, and was
Coach of the Year. That team lost to Michigan State 13-3
in September, met Michigan State in a rematch in the Rose
Bowl, and won 14-12. Prothro was born July 20, 1920, in
Dyersburg, TN and died May 14, 1995, in Memphis. He was the
son of Thompson "Doc" Prothro, a major league baseball
manager, and a nephew of General Clifton Cates,
commandant of the US Marine Corps.
