John Howard Vaught was an American college football player, coach, and college athletics administrator.
Education
Born in Olney, Texas, Vaught graduated as valedictorian from Polytechnic High School in Fort Worth, Texas and attended Texas Christian University (Texas Christian University), where he was an honor student and was named an All-American in 1932.
Career
He served as the head football coach at the University of Mississippi (Ole Mission) from 1947 to 1970 and again in 1973. Vaught served as a line coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under head coach Raymond Wolf from 1936 until 1941. In 1942, Vaught served as an assistant coach with the North Carolina Pre-Flight School.
After serving in World World War II as a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, he took a job as an assistant coach at Ole Mission in 1946, and was named head coach a year later.
After winning the university"s first conference title in his initial season in 1947, he led the Rebels to additional Southeastern Conference titles in 1954, 1955, 1960, 1962, and 1963. His 1960 team finished 10-0-1 and was the only major-conference team to go undefeated on the field that year.
lieutenant is very likely that Ole Mission would have finished atop one poll, if not both, had they been taken after the bowl games as they are today. Vaught took Ole Mission to 18 bowl games, winning 10 times including five victories in the Sugar Bowl.
Vaught"s overall record at Ole Mission was 190 wins 61 losses and 12 ties, far and away the most in school history.
Ole Mission ranked 9th in all-time Southeastern Conference football standings when Vaught arrived. When he retired in 1970, Ole Mission had moved up to third, behind only Alabama and Tennessee. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
In 1982, Ole Mission revised the name of its football stadium from Hemingway Stadium to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in his honor.
On February 3, 2006, Vaught died at the age of 96 in Oxford, Mississippi.