WVU Sports Hall of Fame
Bill Stewart, best known as Coach Stew, led WVU to one of the greatest bowl wins in school history and had a .700 winning percentage as a head football coach from 2009-11.
After guiding WVU to a remarkable 48-28 victory against Oklahoma in one of the most memorable and significant wins in school history at the 2008 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, Stewart was named WVU’s 33rd head football coach on Jan. 3, 2008, a day after that impressive triumph.
He followed up the Oklahoma victory with three consecutive nine-win seasons, including trips to the Meineke Car Care, Gator and Champs Sports Bowls. Stewart’s nine victories in 2008 represented the most ever by a first-year Mountaineer coach, and his 28-12 career mark included a .700 winning percentage that ranks fifth among all WVU grid coaches. His Big East championship in 2010 was the school’s sixth at the time. The players Stewart recruited won another Big East title and Orange Bowl victory over Clemson in the next season in 2011.
Stewart coached 30 players to All-Big East accolades in his three seasons, including quarterback Pat White, who became the NCAA’s all-time leading rushing quarterback and the first in college football history to win four straight bowl games as a starting quarterback. Stewart saw 18 of his West Virginia players drafted by NFL teams, and he led two Mountaineer squads to Top 25 finishes in 2008 and 2009, while his 2010 team was ranked for several weeks during the season.
Prior to being named head coach at WVU, Stewart spent eight seasons on the West Virginia staff under WVU coaches Don Nehlen and Rich Rodriguez, working with the Mountaineer tight ends and serving as associate head coach in 2007 after spending the prior seven seasons coaching the quarterbacks. He also had the role of special teams coordinator under Rodriguez. It was Nehlen who brought him back to his home state in 2000 as quarterbacks coach, and Stewart helped guide the squad to a winning season and Music City Bowl victory in Nehlen’s final game.
His lengthy coaching resume began at Fairmont State, where he was a student assistant coach for a season, before becoming an assistant coach at Sistersville (W.Va.) High in 1975. In 1977, he moved to Salem College, where he was an assistant football and head track coach for two seasons. In 1979, he moved to North Carolina; he was later an assistant at Marshall (1980), William & Mary (1981-83), Navy (1984), North Carolina (1985-87), Arizona State (1988-89) and Air Force (1990-93). Aside from the 10 bowl games he coached in West Virginia, Stewart was also a part of bowl squads at North Carolina and Air Force.
In 1994, Stewart became head football coach at VMI for three seasons. His 1995 team was the highest scoring squad in VMI history, and Keydet running back Thomas Haskins set a I-AA rushing record with 5,349 yards.
Stewart came to WVU in 2000 from the Canadian Football League, where he served as offensive coordinator of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1999, tutoring two all-conference receivers and a 1,000-yard rusher. While he was offensive line coach for the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes in 1998, Stewart’s line blocked for Mike Pringle, the first 2,000-yard rusher in CFL history.
Stewart was a 1975 education graduate from Fairmont State where he was a three-year letterman and team captain for the WVIAC champions in 1974. He later earned his master’s degree in health and physical education from WVU in 1977. Before transferring to Fairmont State, Stewart played on the WVU freshman football team under legendary coach Bobby Bowden and was the head coach of the Mountaineers against Florida State in Bowden’s final game in the 2010 Gator Bowl.
Stewart died on May 21, 2012, leaving behind his bride, Karen, and son, Blaine, a former WVU assistant coach and now assistant coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
