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.
1952 Maryland Terrapins football team
The 1952 Maryland Terrapins football team represented the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college football in its 32nd season as a member of the Southern Conference. However, during the 1952 season, Maryland underwent sanctions by the Southern Conference that disallowed the team from playing any conference opponents. This was in response to Maryland's violation of a newly instituted ban on postseason play the year prior by its participation in the 1952 Sugar Bowl. Jim Tatum served as the head coach for the sixth season of his nine-year tenure. The team compiled a 7–2 record The loss against 14th-ranked Mississippi ended Maryland's school-record 22-game winning streak. After the season, Maryland left the Southern Conference in order to become a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).