Rich Brooks
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Rich Brooks (born August 20, 1941, Forest, California) is currently the head football coach at the University of Kentucky. Brooks graduated from Oregon State University in 1963, after playing as a defensive back for 3 years. He was an assistant coach for the Beavers from 1965-1970. Brooks is best known for spending 18 seasons at the University of Oregon, and winning the Paul "Bear" Bryant Award for national coach of the year after leading Oregon to the Rose Bowl in 1994.
After reviving (same might say inventing) Oregon's football program, Brooks spent a few years in the National Football League, highlighted by two years as head coach of the rebuilding St. Louis Rams, in which the team went 13-19. After leaving St. Louis, Brooks spent four years on Dan Reeves' staff in Atlanta, and served as interim head coach for the final two games of the 1998 season, in which the Falcons went 14-2.
After two years away from the game, Brooks was hired as head coach at the University of Kentucky. He inherited a team that was 7-5 in 2002, but was yet to feel the full effect of NCAA scholarship restrictions imposed because of recruiting violations committed by a prior Kentucky coaching staff. In Brooks' first three seasons his squads posted records of 4-8, 2-9 and 3-8 (9-25 overall, 4-20 in Southeastern Conference games).
In spite of these poor records and the difficulties created by NCAA sanctions and the lack of a deep football tradition at Kentucky, Brooks has by many accounts recruited a group of promising young student-athletes for the Kentucky football program. Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart put to rest rumors regarding Brooks' immediate future at Kentucky with a November 2005 announcement that he would be retained at least through 2006.
Many college football observers expect a significant improvement on the field for Kentucky in 2006. Without such improvement, Brooks will likely be headed back into retirement at the end of the season.
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