Longtime NFL player and coach Dick Jauron, who led the Chicago Bears to the playoffs and was voted AP coach of the year in 2001, died Saturday. He was 74.
The Bears confirmed his death, which came one day before Philadelphia — where Jauron briefly served as an assistant to current Chiefs coach Andy Reid — played Kansas City in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Jauron was a two-sport star at Yale in the early 1970s, and he was drafted by both the Detroit Lions in the NFL draft and the St. Louis Cardinals in the Major League Baseball amateur draft. He ultimately made football his lifelong pursuit, beginning with five seasons as a defensive back in Detroit and three more with Cincinnati before his retirement in 1980.
The well-liked Jauron moved into coaching and five years later was hired by the Bills as a defensive backs coach. He went on to coach defensive backs in Green Bay and became friends with Reid, who was an assistant offensive line and tight ends coach.
In 1995, Jauron was hired by Tom Coughlin as the defensive coordinator for the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars, and he parlayed success there into the head coaching job in Chicago. Jauron had just one winning record in five seasons with the Bears, winning the NFC North in 2001 before losing to the Eagles — then coached by Reid — in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Jauron was fired in 2003 and became the defensive coordinator in Detroit, where he served as the interim coach for five games in 2005. He spent the next four seasons as the head coach in Buffalo but never had a winning record.
He finished with a 60-82 record and one playoff berth over parts of 10 seasons as a head coach.
Jauron’s death came just two days after the Bears announced the death of Virginia Halas McCaskey, who inherited the franchise from her father, George Halas, and spent four-plus decades as the principal owner. She was 102.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.