Jim Tatum
James M. "Big Jim" Tatum (July 22, 1913 – July 23, 1959) was an American football and baseball player and coach. Tatum served as the head football coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1942, 1956–1958), the University of Oklahoma (1946), and the University of Maryland, College Park (1947–1955), compiling a career college football record of 100–35–7. His 1953 Maryland team won a national title. As a head coach, he employed the split-T formation with great success, a system he had learned as an assistant under Don Faurot at the Iowa Pre-Flight School during World War II. Tatum was also the head baseball coach at Cornell University from 1937 to 1939, tallying a mark of 20–40–1. Tatum's career was cut short by his untimely death in 1959. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1984.
Maryland Terrapins football under Jim Tatum
Seven Maryland players received first-team All-American honors: Bernie Faloney, Stan Jones, Dick Modzelewski, Bob Pellegrini, Mike Sandusky, Jack Scarbath, and Bob Ward (twice honored). Seven Maryland players received second-team All-American honors: Tom Cosgrove, Chet Hanulak, Ray Krouse, Dick Modzelewski, Ed Modzelewski, Ed Vereb, and Bill Walker (twice honored). Also during this period, the Southern Conference (through 1952) and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) (since 1953) bestowed all-conference honors upon Maryland players twenty-seven times. In later years, two of these players were honored as part of the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team and five were inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
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 . 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.