Last night, Hawaii and San Jose State announced the creation of a new college football trophy.
The winner of the game between the two WAC programs will now take home the Dick Tomey Legacy Trophy, named for the head coach that led UH from 1977-1986, and who later led SJSU from 2005-2009.
Sadly, coach Tomey passed away back on May 11th after complications from lung cancer.
At Hawaii, Tomey went 63-46-3 and led the Rainbow Warriors from the FCS independent ranks into the Western Athletic Conference and turned that success into an opportunity to become the head coach at Arizona. With the Wildcats, Tomey went 95-64-4 from 1987-2000 and helped coin the “Desert Swarm” defense of the mid-90’s and led the program to a top four national ranking in 1998. In 2005 he took over the SJSU program and quickly built them from a 3-win team in year one, to a 9-win season in year two, including a bowl win in the New Mexico Bowl over New Mexico.
Creating rivalries, and more specifically rivalry trophies, in college football is a really tough thing to pull off (anyone remember the Civil Conflict trophy between UConn and UCF?), but this is a really classy tribute by both programs, further creating a legacy that Dick Tomey will continue to live on through.
Hats off to San Jose State and Hawaii for this.
