Chuck Sawyer (Napoleon's World)

Charles Brevine "Chuck" Sawyer (born November 9, 1940) is a retired American football coach who coached the University of Alabama Crimson Tide from 1984 until the 1991 season. Prior to Alabama, he was the head coach at the University of Houston from 1977-83, and was a defensive coordinator at Houston from 1970-76 under head coach Dutch Bolling.

Sawyer, hired to replace lackluster coach Jim Roby after Alabama had three straight losing seasons in the early 1980s, built Alabama into a minor power by the late 1980s, stunning the college football world by leading the Crimson Tide to a SouthCo championship over favored Louisiana and Mississippi and a national championship over reigning champion Massachusetts in 1989, and defeated Mississippi when the archrival Falcons were ranked No. 1 in 1990 to win the first of two East Division titles and Alabama's first repeat SouthCo championships since the 1960s.

However, in February of 1992, Sawyer was levied with a show-cause order after it was revealed that he had directly approved payments to recruits in the 1990 and 1991 classes. Alabama was forced to vacate two games from the 1991 season in addition to their East Division championship and Sawyer was quickly fired and Alabama was hit with scholarship reduction penalties and a two-year bowl ban in 1992 and 1993. At the time the harshest penalties ever handed down by the NCAA, Sawyer never coached in the NCAA again and plans to erect a statue in his honor in Tuscaloosa were shelved. After a brief stint coaching offensive linemen and tight ends with the San Antonio Stallions from 1995 to 1999, Sawyer retired from football permanently in the 2000 offseason.