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MVC coach Volney Ashford posthumously inducted into College Football Hall of Fame

Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Marshall Democrat-News
Volney C. Ashford, legendary Missouri Valley College football coach and MVC alumnus, was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame Saturday, July 18.

Ashford was perhaps best known for MVC's 41-game winning streak while he coached from 1941 through 1947.

According to the research of the NCAA and the NAIA records, the MVC win streak ranks 5th all-time for all divisions of college football. Following the 41-game winning streak,

Ashford led the Vikings to unanimous national acclaim as the number-one small college team in the country in 1949.

Ashford graduated from Marshall High School in 1927 and from MVC in 1931. He became head coach of the Vikings in 1937 before going on to graduate from University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1949. In 1971, Ashford retired and took over as vice-president of development for MVC.

He was named Little All-American Coach of the Year in 1950 and twice received the NAIA Award of Merit. In 1959, he was named NAIA Coach of the Year, and his overall record of 197-55-12 ranks him in the top 10 of all-time college coaches.

Ashford is a member of the MVC Athletic Hall of Fame, the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, the Helms Foundation Coaches Hall of Fame, and the Helms Foundation National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame. He helped found the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and received the Knute Rockne Award for his contribution to athletics.

Ashford died in 1973.

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He was a good man. That is even more important than all the well deserved honors.

-- Posted by Oklahoma Reader on Thu, Jul 23, 2009, at 12:12 AM

Well deserved and long overdue.

-- Posted by upsedaisy on Tue, Jul 21, 2009, at 8:50 PM

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