Blair Cherry

Johnson Blair Cherry (August 7, 1901 – September 10, 1966) was a baseball and football coach for the University of Texas at Austin, and is a member of the Longhorn Hall of Honor and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.

Blair Cherry

Biographical details
Born	August 7, 1901 Kerens, Texas
Died	September 10, 1966 (aged 65) Lubbock, Texas
Playing career
Football
1920–1922	TCU
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
Football
1926–1928	Ranger HS (TX)
1929	North Side HS (TX)
1930–1936	Amarillo HS (TX)
1937–1946	Texas (assistant)
1947–1950	Texas
Baseball
1943–1945	Texas
Head coaching record
Overall	32–10–1 (college football) 30–23 (college baseball)
Bowls	2–1
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
Football 1 SWC (1950)

Early life

Cherry was born in Kerens, Texas on August 7, 1901. He played his high school ball at Weatherford High School and later attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth in the early 1920s and was a three-sport star. Upon graduation in 1924, he had a brief professional baseball career but soon entered the coaching profession. In 1936, he married Florence Snodgrass of Amarillo, with whom he had two children.

Coaching career

High school

Cherry's first coaching position was at Ranger High School in Ranger, Texas, where he spent three seasons, from 1926 to 1928.

In 1929, Cherry coached for one season at North Side High School in Fort Worth.

In 1930, Cherry was named head coach at Amarillo High School. It was here that he established his reputation as a head coach. He compiled a record of 84 wins and 5 losses, with 45 of those wins by shutout. The average score in these games was 30–5. Amarillo High became the second school in Texas to win three straight state championships, in 1934, 1935, and 1936 (first was the Paul Tyson-coached Waco High in 1925, 1926, and 1927), allowing the opponent teams only a combined 13 points in these three championship games.

Football

Cherry was considered as a candidate for the head coach position at the University of Texas at Austin in 1937, but was passed over for the better-known Dana X. Bible. Bible offered Cherry a position as an assistant coach on his staff. Bible groomed Cherry to be his successor, and upon Bible's retirement in 1946, Cherry was appointed as head coach.

As head coach, Cherry switched the Longhorns' offense from a single-wing formation to the now-popular T formation, and found instant success. With Bobby Layne at quarterback, Texas earned a 10–1 record in his first year, a final ranking of fifth, and a defeat of sixth-ranked Alabama in the 1948 Sugar Bowl.

In the 1948 season, his team compiled a 7–3–1 record and defeated eighth-ranked Georgia in the Orange Bowl. Following this season, Cherry was offered head coaching jobs by the Washington Redskins and Chicago Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL), but turned down these offers to remain the head coach at Texas.

In 1949, Cherry's Longhorns compiled a 6–4 record.

In 1950, the Longhorns won the Southwest Conference title with a 6–0 conference record, and earned a berth in the Cotton Bowl Classic, as well as a #3 final national ranking. Mid-season, Cherry announced that he would be retiring from coaching, and his last game was a 20–14 defeat at the hands of Tennessee in the 1951 Cotton Bowl Classic.

Cherry was suffering from ulcers and insomnia at the time of his retirement, and later hinted in the article "Why I Quit Coaching" that harsh criticism from fans and media, despite his 32–10–1 record and two top-five finishes, led to his decision to retire.

Baseball

Cherry also served as baseball coach from 1943 to 1945 during Bibb Falk's absence. His teams compiled a 30–23 overall record, but won two conference titles with a 22–4 conference mark in three seasons. No SWC title was awarded in 1944.

Post-coaching life

After retiring from coaching, Cherry moved to Lubbock, Texas to enter the oil business. He died of heart failure in 1966, and is buried at Llano Cemetery in Amarillo.

He was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame shortly before his death in 1966, and posthumously inducted into the Longhorn Hall of Honor in 1968.

Head coaching record

College football

Year	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Bowl/playoffs	Coaches^#	AP^°
Texas Longhorns (Southwest Conference) (1947–1950)
1947	Texas	10–1	5–1	2nd	W Sugar		5
1948	Texas	7–3–1	4–1–1	2nd	W Orange
1949	Texas	6–4	3–3	T–3rd
1950	Texas	9–2	6–0	1st	L Cotton	2	3
Texas:		32–10–1	18–5–1
Total:		32–10–1
National championship         Conference title         Conference division title or championship game berth
^#Rankings from final Coaches Poll. ^°Rankings from final AP Poll.

College baseball

This contains only the collegiate record, not overall record.

Statistics overview

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Texas Longhorns[1] (Southwest Conference) (1943–1945)
1943	Texas	6-2	6-2	T-1st
1944	Texas	7-3
1945	Texas	11-1	10-1	1st
Texas:		24–6 (.800)	22–4 (.846)
Total:		24–6–0 (.800)
National champion         Postseason invitational champion         Conference regular season champion         Conference regular season and conference tournament champion       Division regular season champion       Division regular season and conference tournament champion       Conference tournament champion

References

1. "Texas Baseball History 2018 Fact Book" (PDF). Texas Sports. Retrieved 24 October 2019.

• Roger Clarkson (May 19, 2000). "Blair Cherry". Amarillo Globe-News. Retrieved November 2, 2006.
• "Texas Baseball History: Coaching Records". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved November 2, 2006.
• Ray Schmidt (November 2001). "The "T" Comes to Texas" (PDF). College Football Historical Society Newsletter, Vol XV, Num 1. Retrieved November 2, 2006.
• Cherry, Johnson Blair from the Handbook of Texas Online