Penn State
In 1952, he accepted the job as athletic director at Penn State. During his 18 years at Penn State, McCoy also served as Dean of the College of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. He shepherded the redesignation of the college in 1963, changing its name from the College of Physical Education and Athletics. It was McCoy who brought to realization Penn State's 700-acre (2.8 km2) Stone Valley Recreation Area as a recreation center for students and faculty, but also as a training ground for students in the recreation and parks program, and as a demonstration project for the entire state in outdoor education. McCoy also had the foresight to anticipate the importance of science and medicine in athletics, directing the college into research in the field of athletics, biomechanics and human performance labs. In 1969, McCoy pioneered the Sports Research Institute at Penn State, which has contributed to safer practices in all aspects of athletics and to research in the fields of sports physiology, biomechanics, and sports medicine. He oversaw an era of tremendous growth and revitalization and led the development of a new ice skating rink, new bowling alleys and a wide variety of recreational facilities. In the late 1960s, he also led the campaign for a new football stadium, new tennis courts and an enlarged gymnasium and recreational facilities. During his years at Penn State, McCoy also occupied positions on the NCAA committee on injuries and safety, and later on the highly-coveted NCAA Executive Committee and Council, its policy-making body, and also served as vice-president and secretary-treasurer of the NCAA. He was also a past president of the Eastern College Athletic Conference.
When Penn State finished with a 5–5 record in 1965, Rip Engle stepped down after 16 years as head coach. It was McCoy's job to find a replacement. In February 1966, McCoy chose Engle's assistant, Joe Paterno, who remains the Nittany Lions head coach 45 years later. Paterno recalled the hiring process this way: "The guy who was the athletic director, Ernie McCoy, the dean of the college of phys ed, called me into his office. He said, 'Do you want the job?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Okay.' We shook hands, and he said, 'You get 20,000 bucks a year." Paterno went on to win over 400 games and two national championships as Penn State's head coach.
When the Nittany Lions traveled to Pasadena in 1966 to play the UCLA Bruins, McCoy met with the local press. While acknowledging that Penn State was rebuilding, he guaranteed that the team would make Pennsylvanians proud: "We may not be big enough, or strong enough, and we may not have enough experience for UCLA. But the folks back in Pennsylvania are going to be proud of our team. They'll be in there trying all the way." McCoy did play a key role in building a program that made the State of Pennsylvania proud. In an interview in 2007, Paterno credited McCoy as "the guy who really turned this whole athletic program around."
In June 1970, McCoy announced his retirement after 18 years at Penn State. The Daily News in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania reported at the time: "Trying to separate Ernie McCoy from athletics is like trying to separate an Englishman from his tea -- it's next to impossible."
Read more about this topic: Ernie Mc Coy (athletic Director)
Famous quotes containing the words penn and/or state:
“Later you hear it wander the dark house
Like a mother who rises at night to seek a childhood picture;
Or it goes to the backyard and stands like an old horse cold in the
pasture.”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“Thus we steadily worship Mammon, both school and state and church, and on the seventh day curse God with a tintamar from one end of the Union to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)