Pepper Rodgers

Who is Pepper Rodgers?

Franklin C. "Pepper" Rodgers is a former American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at the University of Kansas, University of California, Los Angeles, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, compiling a career college football record of 73–65–3. Rodgers was also the head coach of the United States Football League's Memphis Showboats from 1984 to 1985 and of the Canadian Football League's Memphis Mad Dogs in 1995. He also served as the Washington Redskins director of football from 2001 to 2004. At 69, he was considered for the Redskins' head coaching position before Norv Turner's eventual firing during the 2000 season.

Rodgers played college football at Georgia Tech, where he was a member of the Yellow Jackets' 1952 national championship team as a backup quarterback and placekicker. As a coach, he led the Kansas Jayhawks to a share of the Big Eight Conference title in 1968, the program's most recent conference championship. With the Memphis Showboats of the USFL, Rodgers was the first professional coach of future Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive end Reggie White.

Rodgers is the author of Fourth and Long Gone, a fictional book published in 1985 that is a bawdy roman à clef of his experiences as a college football coach and recruiter. He also wrote an autobiography: Pepper, written with Al Thomy. Rodgers graduated from Georgia Tech in 1955.