Maryland Terrapins Football Under Jim Tatum (1947–1955) - Tatum Before Maryland

Tatum Before Maryland

Jim Tatum was born in McColl, South Carolina on July 22, 1913. He played football as a left tackle like four of his older brothers. Tatum attended the University of North Carolina where he played for Carl Snavely's Tar Heels and earned All-American honors during his senior year in 1934. The following season, he became Snavely's assistant coach and followed him to Cornell in 1936. Tatum returned to North Carolina in 1940 as an assistant coach under Bear Wolf. In 1942, Tatum was promoted into the head coaching job himself and compiled a 5–2–2 record. The next year, during the Second World War, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served as an assistant coach for the Iowa Pre-Flight School football team under Don Faurot, the inventor of the split-T. Future Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson worked as an assistant coach alongside Tatum.

In 1946, with the recommendation of Oklahoma athletic director Jap Haskell, Tatum was hired as the Sooners' head coach and brought Wilkinson as an assistant. Tatum replaced Dewey Luster, who resigned due to ill health. Luster had struggled in the position as the Second World War put a continuous and heavy drain on athletes at the University of Oklahoma. The final game before Luster's resignation was a 0–47 loss at the hands of Oklahoma A&M, which rounded out Oklahoma's 1945 season with a 5–5 record.

In Tatum's one season at Oklahoma, he led the Sooners to an 8–3 finish and a share of the Big Six Conference championship. Tatum and his staff also recruited nine players who became All-Americans: Plato Andros, Buddy Burris, Jack Mitchell, Jim Owens, John Rapacz, Darrell Royal, George Thomas, Wade Walker, and Stan West.

In addition to his team's success on the gridiron, Tatum caused controversy. Buddy Burris, the first three-time All-American at Oklahoma, said, "Jim Tatum was a con-man, a dictator, a tyrant, and one hell of a football coach." Tatum greatly surpassed his allocated budget and linked players with sponsors who sometimes paid or bought clothes for their sponsored players. After a 34–13 Gator Bowl victory over N.C. State, University of Oklahoma president George Cross discovered that Tatum had paid the fifty Sooners players $120 each ($1,413, adjusted for inflation). Cross had explicitly warned Tatum not to do so, as it was a violation of conference rules. With further investigation, it was discovered that $60,000 ($706,382 in inflation-adjusted terms) was unaccounted for in the athletic department budget, which resulted in the relief of athletic director Jap Haskell.

Meanwhile, Tatum resigned to take the head coaching job at Maryland with a $12,000 salary, one-third more than he made at Oklahoma, ($123,380, adjusted for inflation). Oklahoma filled the open coaching job with Tatum's former assistant, Bud Wilkinson.