Wallace Wade

Bio

A perfectionist, Wallace Wade achieved remarkable success at Alabama and Duke through planning and hard work. "The best you can do is not enough unless it gets the job done.", he would caution his players. The job was usually done - and done well. At Alabama (1923-1930), Wade's teams rolled to a 61-13-3 record. Later, at Duke, (1931-41, 46-50, with time out for service in World War II), Wade's Blue Devils compiled a 110-36-7 mark. Many of the losses came in the years after the war, prompting Wade to say, "I'm no longer tough enough." Jack Horner, a writer for the Durham Herald, had a different theory: "The truth was that Wade mellowed after seeing 135-pounders die for America as gloriously as 200-pounders." Those post-war years could hardly dim the achievements of this great coach. He produced five Rose Bowl teams, including the 1926 Alabama team which was the first Southern club to appear in the classic, downing Washington, 20-19. The Rose Bowl was not new to Wallace Wade, though. He had been a star guard for Brown in the 1916 classic - thus the first man to have appeared in the Rose Bowl as both a player and a coach.