Longtime NFL player and coach Dick Jauron, who led the Chicago Bears to the playoffs and was voted AP coach of the year in 2001, died Saturday. He was 74.
The Bears confirmed his death, which came one day before Philadelphia — where Jauron briefly served as an assistant to current Chiefs coach Andy Reid — played Kansas City in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
Jauron was a two-sport star at Yale in the early 1970s, and he was drafted by both the Detroit Lions in the NFL draft and the St. Louis Cardinals in the Major League Baseball amateur draft. He ultimately made football his lifelong pursuit, beginning with five seasons as a defensive back in Detroit and three more with Cincinnati before his retirement in 1980.
The well-liked Jauron moved into coaching and five years later was hired by the Bills as a defensive backs coach. He went on to coach defensive backs in Green Bay and…
