Former UAlbany Football Coach Wins Prestigious Stagg Award

By Carter Schum | September 29, 2025

 Former Great Dane head coach Bob Ford speaking to his team post game.

Photo Credit: M.E Gernander Special Collections and Archives / UAlbany

Generations of the University at Albany football alumni gathered during halftime of the Sept. 20 football game to commemorate former head coach Bob Ford for winning the prestigious Amos Alonso Stagg Award hosted by American Football Coaches Association (AFCA).  

The Amos Alonso Stagg Award is presented to coaches who have made “outstanding contributions to the advancement and best interests of football.” This award is named after the University of Chicago and the University of the Pacific head coach Amos Alonso Stagg, who won multiple national titles as the head coach of the Chicago Maroons and is considered one of the greatest college football coaches of all time.  

Ford spent more than four decades as head coach of the Great Danes and was the driving force behind the resurgence of football on the UAlbany campus in 1970 following several decades of football dormancy. The team played at a club level from 1970 to 1972 before gaining varsity status at the NCAA Division III (DIII) level. 

From 1973 to 1994, Ford won 122 games at the Division III level with many notable achievements, including an undefeated 9-0 season in 1974, an NCAA semi final appearance in 1977 and an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) North championship in 1985. Throughout this run, Coach Ford turned the Great Danes into one of the driving forces of DIII football not only in the North East but also throughout the country. Ford continued to lead the football team to making the jump to Division II in 1995. 

Despite this chapter of Great Dane football being among the shortest in their history that lasted only four seasons, he continued to find success at this new level. In the four seasons, he compiled a record of 31-12 and won conference championships in 1997 and 1998. 

For the 1999 season, Coach Ford completed the climb-up of the collegiate football ladder by leading the Great Danes to the Division 1 level in the North East Conference (NEC). 

For 14 years the Great Danes were members of the NEC, he had a total record of 97- 58. Highlights from this era include an ECAC bowl victory in 2002 and the program’s first D1-FCS playoffs appearance in 2011. This era saw the program transform from minnow to national prominence as  a perennial NEC contender. 

Coach Ford's successes at all levels of competition culminated in 2013 when two of the most substantial moments in the program's history happened. 

First, the team was invited to join the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), one of the power conferences in the FCS that’s home to multiple former national champions and known for putting multiple teams per season in the FCS playoffs. Most importantly, the program moved into the state of the art Tom & Mary Casey Stadium, which was later renamed in his honor. Following a disappointing 1-11 season in 2013, coach Ford retired from his position after several decades at the helm of UAlbany football. 

Throughout his career, many things around him changed. Whether it be conference, division or stadium, Bob Ford coached just about everywhere a college coach could. However, wherever he went, success followed him. He built up the football program from a club of students on campus to a nationally prominent NCAA football team. The accomplishment took time and effort but resulted in countless amounts of wins. 

With the Stagg Award, Coach Ford joins an elite class of college football coaches, such as Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Tom Osborne and the father of modern football Pop Warner, all of whom won national titles as coaches and are in the National College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Georgia.