Longtime college coach John Pont dies at 80

OXFORD, Ohio (AP) -- John Pont, who was head football coach at Indiana, Northwestern, Yale and Miami of Ohio, died Tuesday at his home after a long illness, the school said. He was 80.

Pont, who had been fighting cancer, coached the Hoosiers from 1965 to 1972. In 1967, Indiana finished 9-2 after representing the Big Ten in the school's only appearance in the Rose Bowl, losing to Southern California.

Pont spent 13 years at Miami as a player, assistant coach to Ara Parseghian and succeeded Parseghian as head coach here in 1956. When Pont graduated, he was the school's career rushing leader with 2,457 yards, and became Miami's first player to have his number, 42, retired.

"John Pont meant an awful lot to me. He was the captain of my very first team at Miami in 1951 and was an outstanding leader," Parseghian, who as Notre Dame's football coach later helped return the program to national prominence, said in a statement. "As a person, John could identify with everyone he met, from the janitor to the president."

Pont was on hand last year when the third Miami player to have his jersey retired, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, was honored. And Pont returned to Indiana last year for a 40th anniversary celebration of the Rose Bowl team.

"John Pont exemplified leadership and great success during his years as head football coach at Indiana University," Indiana President Michael McRobbie said in a statement. "He was committed to ensuring the academic, as well as the athletic, success of his players and always represented his team and the university with class and professionalism."

"He was a great, great IU man and did something no one has ever done here before or since," said Mark Deal, Indiana's associate director of football operations and whose brother Mike played on the Rose Bowl team. "It is a sad day for Indiana University football."

Pont was head coach at Miami in 1956-62, Yale in 1963-64, Indiana in 1965-72 and Northwestern in 1973-77, where he also was director of athletics in 1975-80. He later coached at Hamilton High School in Ohio, the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, and in Japan.

Pont is survived by his wife, Sandy, three children and seven grandchildren.

A visitation was planned Sunday at the Smith & Ogle Funeral Home in Oxford. A funeral Mass was scheduled for Monday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Oxford.