Long-Time Huskers Football Assistant Coach George Darlington Passes Away at the Age of 87
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The former Husker assistant coach passed away in Lincoln on Sunday morning at the age of 87.
Darlington served as an assistant coach in Lincoln for a total 30 seasons from 1973 to 2002, the longest tenure of any football coach in Nebraska history. He was part of Dr. Tom Osborne’s staff for each of his 25 seasons as Nebraska’s head coach. Darlington was in charge of defensive ends for his first 13 seasons before assuming the defensive backs job in 1986. He held this role until Osborne’s retirement in 1997 and then spent his final five seasons in Lincoln in the same role under Frank Solich.
His tenure included 3 national championships, 14 conference titles and 21 seasons in which the team finished as a Top 10 team nationally.
The Huskers played in a bowl game in each of Darlington’s 30 seasons on staff.
A West Virginia native, Darlington played football at Rutgers where he earned a Bachelor of Science before attending Stanford where he earned two more degrees including a Master of Arts. He began his coaching career at Johnson Regional High School in New Jersey in 1962 and was at San Jose State before Tom Osborne hired him for his first season as Nebraska’s head coach in 1973.
Following his Nebraska career, Darlington served as an assistant coach at Marshall, Louisiana Tech, Southeast Missouri State and San Diego, before retiring in 2010.
In addition to coaching, Darlington taught a Football 101 class at Nebraska for years, both during his coaching career and after his retirement. He actually penned the 150-page textbook for the class which included instruction in the basics of offense, defense, special teams, officials signals and playing rules to name a few.
In his later years up until his death, Darlington remained very active as an observer at Husker football practices as well as being a fixture in the Memorial Stadium press box on game days. He just happened to sit in the row above and behind me, sometimes moving down to my right, and could be heard still offering coaching advice during games with a big smile on his face.
My personal memory of him will always be the time we chatted briefly about our shared and utter disdain for fade routes inside the opponent’s 10-yard-line.
The man loved Husker football like no other – he was even smiling as he shook his head when that particular third-down fade fluttered incomplete.
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