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Date:November, 14 2003
Contact: Bill Sodoma
COLBY FOOTBALL COACH TOM AUSTIN TO RETIRE FROM COACHING
WATERVILLE, Maine --
Colby College football coach Tom Austin will watch the Mules from a different part of Seaverns Field when the 2004 season begins next fall.
Austin has decided to leave the sidelines and retire as head coach of the Colby football team after 18 years. He turned around a struggling program when he started with Colby in 1986 and won or shared part of 12 CBB (Colby-Bates-Bowdoin) titles during the next 18 years. A search for a new head coach will begin immediately.
"It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to see the program grow. What stays with me is the efforts and the commitment from year to year by our players," Austin said. "It's a real privilege to work with the kind of young people we have here at Colby."
Austin leaves after arguably one of his top coaching performances. The Mules, after losing 20 seniors to graduation from a 4-4 team in 2002, finished the 2003 season at 5-3 and closed out Austin's coaching career by winning the CBB title with a victory over Bowdoin College last Saturday.
"We had four wins this year where we had to come from behind," Austin said. "We had stellar leadership from our captain (Brandon Irwin) and we had a group that was a real team and that was very together."
Austin was the longest-tenured football coach in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. He finished as Colby's leader in career coaching victories with his 67-76-1 record.
Austin's record at Colby suffered at first because he took over a program that had not had a winning season since 1979. The Mules went 1-15 in Austin's first two years, but things changed in 1988 when Colby went 4-4 and won the CBB title.
"That had to be the most celebrated 4-4 season in America that year," Austin said. "We broke a 15-game losing streak against Tufts in the third game of the season when they went for a 2-point conversion attempt and failed with us holding a 34-33 lead. I'll never forget that because I remember the Levine brothers (Ludy '21 and Pacy '27) joined in the celebration with one of them on the bottom of the pile and the other on the top."
Austin and the Mules won or shared part of nine straight CBB titles from 1988 to 1996. Austin's love for the CBB title started when he played quarterback for the University of Maine, which used to compete against the three colleges in the State Series from 1895 to 1964.
"Your last three games of the year were against the other Maine schools and you always had four to six thousand people at each place you played," said Austin, a 1963 graduate of University of Maine. "You can recall those games just like they were yesterday. At the Colby C Club dinner last month there were some 1961 and 1962 graduates that I played against who were in attendance at the dinner. Guess what the conversation always came back to --- the CBB (State Series)."
Austin started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at the University of Vermont in 1963. He served as head coach at Lawrence (Maine) High School for two years in 1965-66. Austin then was an assistant coach at Ithaca College in 1968 before serving on Boston University's coaching staff from 1969 to 1973. Austin's final stop before Colby was a stint as head coach at Bridgton (Maine) Academy from 1974 to 1985.
Coaching continuity helped the Mules during Austin's 18 seasons. Offensive coordinator Ed Mestieri and defensive coordinator Tom Dexter each concluded their 15th seasons with Austin on Colby's sidelines. Offensive backfield coach Mark Godomsky has been an assistant for 10 years.
"Football coaching today is certainly not a one man operation. I've been fortunate to have those guys be the core of the coaching staff," Austin said. "You are talking about 58 years at Colby between the four of us. That kind of continuity is a steadiness that I think prospects like."
Austin and his coaching staff helped the Mules win a share of the NESCAC title in 2000 with a 7-1 record. He was named NESCAC Coach of the Year and was the Division II/III Coach of the Year by the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston. Austin was named the C Club Person of the Year in 2001.
Despite those honors, Austin would rather remember his relationships with his players and his time on the sidelines.
"I loved to teach fundamentals of the game and get 11 people to work together on one side of the ball," Austin said. "When I finally made it to the practice field you knew you were done with all the rigors of the day and it was time to have fun."
