Happy birthday Coach Mora. The former Washington linebacker/safety and current UConn head coach turns sixty years old today.
Mora is the son of former NFL coach Jim E. Mora who will forever be remembered for his “PLAYOFFS” press conference.
After Moras playing days at Washington, he got right into coaching. He stayed at UW as a grad assistant in 1984 before landing a job in 1985 with the Chargers. He was in San Diego from 1985 to 1991 where he coached the defensive backs.
Following his time with the Chargers, Mora landed with the Saints to coach DB’s from 1992 to 1996. He then got a job as the DB’s coach with the 49ers from 1997 to 1998 and took over as the defensive coordinator from 1999-2003.
Mora landed his first head coaching job in 2004 where he coached the Falcons from 2004 to 2006. Mora left Atlanta and took a job in Seattle as the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator from 2007 to 2008 and took over as head coach for the 2009 season.
After his stint with Seattle, Mora took some time away from coaching and then in 2012 was hired to coach the UCLA Bruins. He was with UCLA from 2012 to 2017 and held a record of 46-30. He was fired in 2017 after a loss to USC.
Since 2017, Mora has not coached and now he is back and is taking on a major task. He is trying to turn around the UConn Huskies. A program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2010 when they went 8-5 and lost to Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
I don’t want to get over confident and get too excited, but I have a great feeling about Coach Mora with the Huskies. I’ve never seen a college coach as involved as him right after he’s been hired.
Mora has made his presence known around campus. He showed up to the women’s basketball game and spoke at half time while taking photos with Paige Bueckers.
Outside of that, Mora was seen handing out hot chocolate before a UConn hoops game and even at the marching bands practice.
I think that Jim Mora can turn this dismal program around, and as a fan I’m thrilled to see an outside the box hire instead of bringing in college coaching retreads.
Happy Birthday Coach Mora!