| Army West Point Head Football Coach Jeff Monken has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Buddy Teevens Award, which was created to honor those coaches who’ve been innovators in growing and improving the game of college football. Named after the legendary Dartmouth College coach, the award recognizes outstanding achievement on the field, as well exceptional leadership that leaves a lasting impact on players, other coaches, and the sport at-large.
Over the last 11 seasons, Coach Monken has resurrected the Black Knights program, which was mired in a 17-year slump when he arrived. By blending his core principles of humility, toughness, effort, and execution with cutting-edge tweaks to his tried-and-true triple-option, Monken has gone 81-56 at one of the toughest places to win consistently. Despite not having access to the transfer portal or NIL incentives for his players, he continues to pioneer winning formulas. This season, Monken has led Army to 11 wins and its first-ever conference title.
The Teevens Award was established this year by the Manning Family to honor their long-time friendship with Coach Teevens.
“Universally loved and admired, Buddy connected with everyone who crossed his path,” said Archie Manning. ”He mentored thousands of players and assistant coaches during his 44 years on the sidelines, and his passion for the game led him to become an innovator and pioneer in making the game safer for future generations as well as hiring women in coaching positions. Buddy was a great coach but more than that he was just a great guy who wanted to make the game better for all.”
“Coach Jeff Monken is a deserving winner of the Buddy Teevens Award. One of the main themes that Buddy lived by was ‘adjust and improvise.’ Coach Monken has done that at Army while leading the program to an incredible championship season,” said Peyton Manning. “His results on the field are worth celebrating, but I know Buddy would be just as proud of the leader and the person he is off the field.”
Teevens made a commitment to innovation to preserve and improve college football, including the elimination of tackling from practices to reduce injuries, inspiring the development of a robotic tackling dummy and the hiring of women in coaching positions, two of whom are currently coaching in the NFL — Callie Brownson (Cleveland Browns) and Jennifer King (Washington Commanders).
A head football coach for more than 30 years, including two stints at Dartmouth equaling 22 years in total, Teevens, launched his head coaching career at Maine from 1985-86. He landed the top job at his alma mater in 1987, beginning his first tour with the Big Green, which ran from 1987-91 and included a share of the Ivy League title in 1990 and the outright crown the following year. He left Hanover for the top jobs at Tulane (1992-1996) and Stanford (2002-04) with stops in between as an assistant at Illinois (1997-98) and Florida (1999-2001) under Hall of Fame coach Steve Spurrier.
He returned to head the Big Green program in 2005, leading the team to a share of the Ivy League crown in 2015, 2019, and 2021. While at Dartmouth, Teevens was honored as the New England Coach of the Year three times, in 1990, 2015, and 2019, and Ivy League Coach of the Year in 2019 and 2021. All told, he led Dartmouth to five conference titles and a 117-101-2 record, including 83-70-1 in the Ivy League, making him the Big Green’s all-time winningest coach. |
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