Nick Kotys

Nick Kotys (April 3, 1913 – July 28, 2005) was an American college and high school football coach. At Coral Gables High School near Miami, Florida, he built one of the most dominating high school football programs in Florida state history, winning state playoff championships in 1963, 1964, 1967 and 1968, and two unanimous mythical state newspaper poll championships in 1956 and 1958 before the playoff system started. His Coral Gables Cavaliers football teams also won five mythical national titles in 1956, 1964, 1967, 1968 and 1969. Kotys retired in 1971 after 20 seasons as head coach of the Cavaliers with a 160–33–9 record&mdash;his teams having won over eighty-one percent of their games played.

Kotys earned his B.S. in economics and education from Villanova University (1936), before starting his coaching career at Shickshinny, Bloomsburg, and Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where he compiled a thirteen-year record of 98 wins, 24 losses and 7 ties. Kotys became the offensive coordinator and backfield coach under head coach Herman Hickman at Yale University in 1949. He left Yale to accept the head football coach and athletic director positions at Coral Gables High School in 1952.

Kotys was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame in 1984. Thirty-six years after he retired from coaching, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) named him to its All-Century Team in 2007.