Larry Fedora shares deep ties to Baylor

In 1990, then-Baylor football coach Grant Teaff was introduced to a young high school coach eager to break into the college ranks.

His name was Larry Fedora.

The Hall of Fame coach spent some time visiting with Fedora, who ultimately accepted a position on Teaff’s staff as a graduate assistant coach. And just from their initial encounter, Teaff recognized Fedora’s potential.

“He had that look in his eyes that I like — very determined to be the best he could be,” Teaff said. “That's my kind of folk. So I brought him on our staff, and I knew after I had been around him for two weeks he would be an outstanding football coach and a leader.

“I really truly felt that even at an early age he would someday be very, very outstanding as a head coach.”

About 25 years later, Teaff’s hunch has seemingly come true. In Fedora’s fourth year at the helm of the North Carolina football team, the Tar Heels enter Tuesday’s Russell Athletic Bowl looking to set a school record with 12 wins this season.

But for UNC to accomplish this historic feat, Fedora and his team will have to defeat Baylor — the school that gave him his first major college coaching job.

“It was kind of where I cut my teeth on college coaching,'' Fedora said. “I know a lot of people down there, and I have a lot of friends still from that area.''

In 1987, former Baylor football player Scott Smith hired Fedora as an assistant coach at Garland High School in Garland, Texas. Smith joined Baylor’s coaching staff in 1990, and shortly after, a graduate assistant job became available with the Bears.

Smith called Fedora, and Fedora traveled to Waco, Texas, to meet Teaff. The legendary coach later offered Fedora the position, which he eagerly accepted.

“At that time, I was married, had no children, decided to make that jump and found out a few weeks later we were having a child,” Fedora said. “But somehow we made it work.”

As Fedora and his family put down roots in Waco, the then-28-year-old coach began to blossom. He absorbed all the knowledge he could and worked on the defensive side of the ball before becoming the tight end coach.

At the end of the 1992 campaign, Teaff retired and offensive coordinator Chuck Reedy seized the reins. When it came time for Reedy to assemble his staff, he retained Fedora as the receivers coach. It was an easy decision.

“He had worked like a full-time coach,” Reedy said about Fedora. “He had done everything the nine full-time coaches had done other than be on the road recruiting, and I knew he'd do a good job with that.

“He was a Texas guy, so that was important to me. But, you know, beyond that, he was a guy who I knew had an excellent future in football and I knew he'd do a great job for us. And certainly he did.”

Fedora left Baylor after six seasons as a full-time coach, the most he’s spent at any school. He spent two years as an assistant at Air Force before serving three-year stints at Middle Tennessee, Florida and Oklahoma State.

His first head-coaching job came in 2008 at Southern Miss, where he stayed for four years before accepting the job at North Carolina prior to the 2012 season.

Having dealt with an NCAA investigation since his arrival and chemistry issues a season ago, Fedora now has the Tar Heels on the brink of one of the most successful seasons in program history.

And as Fedora prepares his team to face the school that gave him a life-changing opportunity, Teaff’s prediction could be on verge of becoming a reality.

“That's the sign of a great coach is when you can take over a program that has struggled,” Teaff said, “and to come in and to get all of that squared away straight, to be able to put together a coaching staff of the quality he has and then be able to actually go on the field with strong competition and win, the proof is in the pudding.”

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