1950 Maryland Terrapins football team
Maryland was led by fourth-year head coach Jim Tatum, who "Time" magazine called "the most successful major college coach in the game" during his nine-year tenure at College Park. To date, Tatum remains the winningest Maryland football coach of the modern era, with a winning percentage of 0.819. The team was led on the field by sophomore quarterback and future Heisman Trophy runner-up Jack Scarbath who made his first career start in the season-opener.
Maryland Terrapins football under Jim Tatum
After the 1955 season, Tatum took an 18% pay cut, from $18,500 to $15,000 (from $ to $ in inflation-adjusted terms), to return to North Carolina as head coach. There, "The Daily Tar Heel" student newspaper was displeased to see Tatum arrive and called him a "parasitic monster of open professionalism." After a few years, however, he was accepted by the student body, the faculty, and alumni. Tatum had said, "I'm going back to North Carolina to die," and the statement proved prescient. Just four years later, in 1959, he died of Rocky Mountain spotted fever at the age of 46.