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News Nuggets, 01.20.06
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

Innovative creator of I-formation passes at 92

TALLAHASSEE — Tom Nugent, a College Football Hall of Famer who was credited with developing the I-formation at Virginia Military Institute, died Thursday. He was 92.

Nugent died of congestive heart failure at a local nursing home, his family said.

Nugent, who coached at Florida State and Maryland after his stint at VMI, was also credited with creating the "typewriter" huddle in which players stood in two rows rather than a circle while plays were being called.

Nugent was 19-18-2 at VMI from 1949-52. In all, he was a head coach for 17 years, posting an 89-80-3 record before turning to broadcasting and public relations.

During his six years at Florida State in the mid-1950s, he also served as the school's athletic director. Among the players on his teams were Lee Corso, who would go into coaching and eventually make the transition to prominent ESPN college football analyst, and actor Burt Reynolds.

"He put FSU on the map in the early years," Reynolds said Thursday. "He was an innovator, who brought a whole new style of football with the I-formation. I love him and I'll miss him."

Nugent led the Seminoles to a 34-28-1 record and two bowl games during his stay from 1953-58 and coached the school's first game against Florida.

Nugent took the Seminoles to their first New Year's Day game in 1955 when they were defeated by Texas Western 47-20 at the Sun Bowl. In 1958, Florida State lost to Oklahoma State 15-6 at the Bluegrass Bowl in Louisville as a then-relatively obscure broadcaster named Howard Cosell did the game.

Nugent coached Maryland from 1959-65, posting a 36-34 record.

After coaching, Nugent was a sports broadcaster before working in public relations.

He was inducted into the halls of fame at Florida State and New York's Ithaca College, where he won 10 letters in baseball, basketball, football and track.

A captain in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Nugent served as a fitness trainer for officers heading overseas, and later as a director of entertainment at a base in Missouri.

A native of Lawrence, MA, Nugent began his coaching career at the high school level in Virginia before accepting his first college job at VMI in 1949.

Nugent's wife of 61 years, Peg, died in 2002. He is survived by five sons, four daughters, 15 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

A memorial mass is scheduled in Tallahassee on Monday.

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