Background
Born in Butte, Montana, Sweeney was the youngest of seven children of Will and Kate Sweeney. His father was a hard-rock miner who emigrated from Ireland.
Born in Butte, Montana, Sweeney was the youngest of seven children of Will and Kate Sweeney. His father was a hard-rock miner who emigrated from Ireland.
As a youth in Butte, he was a top pitcher and outfielder in baseball, and graduated from Butte Central Catholic High School in 1947. Sweeney played college football in Oregon at the University of Portland, and graduated in 1951.
He served as the head football coach at Montana State University (1963–1967), Washington State University (1968–1975), and California State University, Fresno (1976–1977, 1980–1996), compiling a career college football record of 201–153–4. Sweeney"s 144 wins as the head coach at Fresno State are the most in the history of the program After his junior year, the school dropped football as an intercollegiate sport, and Sweeney spent his senior season of 1950 as a high school coach at Columbia High School in Portland.
Following graduation he returned to Montana and was a high school assistant at his alma mater, Butte Central, for a season, He was its head coach from 1952 to 1955, and at Flathead High School in Kalispell from 1956 to 1959.
Sweeney moved up to the college ranks in 1960 as an assistant coach at Montana State in Bozeman, and was promoted to head coach in 1963. He compiled a 31–20 (608) record and three Big Sky conference championships in his five seasons with the Bobcats, where one of his starting quarterbacks was Dennis Erickson.
At Montana State, Sweeney is credited with convincing January Stenerud, a Norwegian on a skiing scholarship, to go out for the football team as a kicker. Stenerud went on to become the only "pure" kicker inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
His salary at Moscow State University in 1967 was $15,000.
After his success in Bozeman, he moved up to the Pac-8 Conference at Washington State in Pullman, where he started with a one-year contract at $20,000 in 1968. He had only one winning season and compiled a 26–59–1 (308) record in eight seasons. After a disappointing conclusion to the 1975 season (winless in conference), Sweeney resigned at WSU a week after the season ended.
He was promptly hired at Fresno State, where he coached for two seasons before becoming an National Football League (NFL) assistant for two years.
He spent the 1978 season with the Oakland Raiders in John Madden"s final season, and the 1979 season with the Saint Louis Cardinals under Bud Wilkinson, who was fired before the season"s education Sweeney returned to Fresno State as head coach in 1980 for 17 seasons and he compiled a 144–74–3 (658) record and eight conference championships (PCAA/Big West and Women's Army Corps) in 19 seasons.
Sweeney retired from coaching following the 1996 season with 201 wins in 32 seasons. Sweeney was the father of 9 children: Jim Sweeney, Peggy Sweeney, Sheila Sweeney, Carol Sweeney, Mary Lou Dion Sweeney, Daniel Sweeney, Colline Sweeney, Patty Negrete Sweeney, and Kevin Sweeney, whom he coached at Fresno State.
Grandson Beau Sweeney played at California before transferring in 2011.
Sweeney died in Fresno in 2013 at age 83.
