Surace ’90 named football head coach

Bob Surace ’90 has been named the 22nd head coach of Princeton’s football team, Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 announced on Wednesday.

Surace was the starting center on the 1989 Ivy League championship team. He has worked as a coach since graduating, and for the past six years he has been the assistant offensive line coach for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals.

“[Surace] has experience as a player here at Princeton, as well as in the NFL and as a college head coach,” Walters said in a University statement. “He is also a product of and a believer in the Princeton concept of education through athletics. We will work with the Bengals to accommodate what works best for them and for Princeton through the end of their season.”

The announcement came just more than four weeks after Walters fired former head coach Roger Hughes following the football team’s third consecutive 4-6 season. Hughes came to Princeton in 2000 and went 47-52 during his 10 seasons at the helm of the football program. His .474 overall winning percentage is the sixth-worst ever for a Princeton coach.

Surace has helped direct the Bengals’ offensive line to a number of team records. In 2005, the team allowed a franchise-low 21 sacks, and Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer finished the regular season with 3,836 yards and 32 touchdowns. Two years later, Cincinnati once again set a record low for sacks allowed in a season, giving up only 17.

This season, Surace has helped develop a solid run-blocking scheme that has the Bengals sixth in the league in rushing. The team is currently 9-5 and one win away from its second AFC North title in five years.

Before joining the Bengals’ coaching staff nine years ago as an offensive staff assistant, Surace was the football coach at Western Connecticut State University. He led the team there to the second round of the NCAA Division III Championship in 2001, and to a Northeast Championship ECAC playoff title in 2000.

A native of Harrisburg, Pa., Surace was awarded a master’s degree in sports management from Springfield (Mass.) College in 1992, and he also served as a running backs coach at Springfield beginning in 1990. He is married to Lisa Surace ’92, and they have two children, Alison and A.J.

Surace is the first alumnus to serve as Princeton’s head coach since Bob Casciola ’58, who stepped down in 1977. He helped the team to a 6-1 Ivy League record in 1989 and received all-Ivy honors. A history major, Surace also focused on sports in his 103-page thesis, titled “Baseball Establishment’s Role in Integration.”

“I’m so excited about coming back to a place that is so special to me,” Surace said in the statement. “I was honored to be a player here, including being part of an Ivy League championship team. I look forward to being the head coach and making this a special place for our student-athletes here at the best university in the world.”