Stan Parrish, the college football coach best known for mentoring Tom Brady and Michigan’s talented group of quarterbacks during the late 1990s, has died.
Parrish passed away on Sunday, according to former players and the Ball State football program, where he coached from 2005 to 2010. He was 75.
A Cleveland, Ohio, native, Parrish coached at Michigan for six memorable seasons as Lloyd Carr’s quarterbacks coach. From 1996 to 2001, Parrish helped tutor a pair of future NFL stars in Brian Griese and Tom Brady, along with highly-touted high school prospect Drew Henson. He helped the Wolverines win a national championship in 1997, and was later handed the reins as offensive coordinator in 2000.
Parrish went on to become the quarterbacks coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002-03), and later joined Brady Hoke’s staff at Ball State as QBs coach and offensive coordinator. When Hoke left for San Diego State in 2008, Parrish was elevated to head coach.
His last act as head coach at the college level came in 2013, when Parrish — already acting as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach — was elevated to Eastern Michigan’s interim head coach following the firing of Ron English.
A 1968 graduate of Heidelberg College, Parrish began his coaching career at Windham High School in Ohio, became a graduate assistant at Purdue in 1975 and became the head coach at Division III Wabash College in 1978.
From there, Parrish returned to Purdue as an assistant for one season in 1983, then took his first high-profile head-coaching job at Marshall University in 1984. That first year, he led the Thundering Herd to their first winning season since the tragic air crash of 1970.
Parrish moved on to coach Kansas State in 1986, but was fired after three seasons and a 2-30-1 overall record. He spent six seasons on staff at Rutgers, serving as quarterbacks coach, offensive coordinator and assistant head coach from 1990 to 1995.
His overall record as head football coach was 64-62-3, and Parrish’s career included a two-year stint as quarterbacks coach at Siena Heights University, an NAIA school in Adrian, Michigan.