John Richard Symank was an American college and professional football player who was a defensive back in the National Football League for seven seasons during the 1950s and 1960s.
21 Facts About John Symank
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John Symank was later the head coach for Northern Arizona University and the University of Texas at Arlington football teams.
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John Symank was born in LaGrange, Texas in 1935, to Oswald "Curly" and Ann Pauline John Symank.
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John Symank's family was of Wendish descent, a Slavic group that emigrated to Central Texas in the mid-nineteenth century from Germany.
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John Symank attended Caldwell High School in Caldwell, Texas, where he excelled in sports and lettered in high school football and track and field for the Caldwell Hornets.
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John Symank enrolled in the college's Reserve Officer Training Corps unit to fulfill his military obligation and remained an active ROTC member throughout his college career.
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John Symank accepted an athletic scholarship to transfer to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Bob Woodruff's Florida Gators football team in 1955 and 1956.
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Years later, when John Symank was a Baltimore Colts assistant coach, and Unitas was retired from football, the two became close friends.
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John Symank is serious and intense, and in a game he would just as soon break your leg as not.
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John Symank has made it in this league because he gets a great deal more out of himself than his ability and size justify.
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John Symank led the Packers in both interception-return and kickoff-return yardage, helping his team get to the 1960 NFL Championship Game.
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In 1963, John Symank was traded along with Bill Quinlan to the New York Giants.
13.
Hecker recruited John Symank to join the Falcons' first coaching staff.
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Former Eagles quarterback Norm Van Brocklin took over as the Falcons head coach for the balance of the 1968 season, and the Falcons assistant coaches including John Symank were fired at season's end.
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John Symank was the eleventh head college football coach for the Arlington Mavericks, and he held that position for three seasons, from 1971 until 1973.
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Bill Arnsparger became the head coach of the New York Giants in 1974, and called John Symank to join his new staff.
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John Symank was hired by Ted Marchibroda as an assistant coach for the Baltimore Colts, and coached under Marchibroda's successor, Mike McCormack, from 1980 to 1981.
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In 1985 the Tigers came back even stronger, and John Symank moved from defensive coordinator to coach the Tigers linebackers and coordinate Arnsparger's recruiting program.
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John Symank had an affinity for recruiting small town high school players, and felt it was his duty to give promising young players the same chance he had been given.
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John Symank died at his beach house on Dauphin Island, Alabama in 2002; he was 66 years old.
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John Symank was survived by his wife Sarah and their children.