Dick Tomey '60 Leads San Jose State to Victory in New Mexico Bowl

December 24, 2006

Dick Tomey 2006.jpg December 24, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - "Dick Tomey waited eight years to win a bowl game," begins a story in today's Arizona Daily Star on the veteran coach and 1960 graduate of DePauw University. "All he wanted to do was get his San Jose State players to hold off another minute," writes Ryan Finley. "The Spartans couldn't do it. With less than 30 seconds remaining in Saturday's 20-12 New Mexico Bowl win over New Mexico, a pair of SJSU players crept up behind their 68-year-old coach, and, with one turn of a bucket, poured a dozen gallons of ice water down his back. With it, San Jose State (9-4) washed away 16 seasons without a bowl victory and six years without a winner."

The article continues, "At the center of SJSU's turnaround is Tomey, who -- six years after resigning as Arizona's winningest coach -- is back in football, and back to the postseason."

Tomey, who has been a head coach for 26 years and previously led the football programs at Hawaii and Arizona. The newspaper points out that he is the fourth-winningest active coach in the nation, and his DePauw years are noted in a "Tomey Timeline" that accompanies the piece.

The lengthy profile also lists the coach's five "keys to success":

Win the turnover battle.
Win the critical situations.
Win the mental game.
Win the kicking game.
Win the fourth quarter.

San Jose State New Mexico Bowl 2006.jpg Finley reports that "the coach is in no mood to retire. San Jose State signed Tomey to a four-year extension earlier this month that will keep the coach employed until age 72. In a way, SJSU's success has made Tomey a hot candidate for other jobs. He received a feeler call from a Stanford alumnus earlier this month, but said he wasn't interested. 'I couldn't ...,' Tomey said, his voice trailing off. 'I guess I couldn't face our players and tell them I was going somewhere else. I would never do that. I'm going to coach here as long as they want me, and as long as I feel I can be successful. The day I can't, I'm moving back to Honolulu.'"