Former Lions OL coach Jerry Wampfler dies at 91. ‘He adored his time in Detroit’

When famous offensive line coach Jerry Wampfler was in the hospital in mid-January, he donned an old Detroit Lions sweatshirt from his stint with the team three decades ago.

Wampfler endowed a Grit Award and Scholarship at his old high school in New Philadelphia, Ohio, awarded to a lineman who works hard and exhibits strong character every year. In his closing days, with a Lions team that’s made tenacity a major element of its culture in the midst of a playoff run, Wampfler still held those values dear.

He died Jan. 21 after a short hospital stay at the age of 91.

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“The criteria for the award of who gets it is that it needs to go to a lineman, offensive or defensive lineman,” Jerry’s son, Tad, told the Free Press on Wednesday. “They don’t even have to be starters. They don’t have to be good in school; they have to be the students that fought, always tried hard, came to practice, and had high character. And that’s what the Grit Award is, and that’s who Dad is, and I tell you that because that’s the player that he most respected.”

Wampfler was raised on a farm during the Great Depression, got talked into playing football by his seventh-grade teacher, and went on to cross paths with some of the best coaches and players the game has ever seen.

He was recruited to Miami (Ohio) by Woody Hayes, coached at the school under Bo Schembechler, won a share of a national championship as an assistant at Notre Dame under Ara Parseghian, and spent three seasons as Colorado State head coach before beginning a two-decade-long NFL career.

Wampfler reached the Super Bowl as offensive line coach for the Philadelphia Eagles under Dick Vermeil and completed his career as an assistant with the Lions in 1989–93.

The Lions, with Barry Sanders in the backfield and Lomas Brown and Kevin Glover on the offensive line, finished in the top 11 in the NFL in rushing in four of Wampfler’s five seasons with the franchise. Before this season, they won their previous division title (in 1993) and playoff game (in 1991) under Wampfler’s time as offensive line coach.

Wampfler also had time with the Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, San Diego Chargers, and Buffalo Bills as an assistant. He retired after the Lions’ wild-card playoff loss in the 1993 season.

“It was time for a rebuild,” Tad Wampfler remarked. “He didn’t have it in him to be part of it, but he liked his time in Detroit. He adored that team. It’s wonderful when you go into a scenario and it’s losing, and you get maybe not to the Super Bowl but the NFC championship, with quality guys. That’s the main thing for him—just, yeah, the Barry Sanders of the world. And Barry, yeah, a wonderful skill, but he loved Barry because of who he was as a person, and Kevin and Lomas and those guys, and Eric Andolsek and Mike Utley. Just who everybody is as a person is basically what it’s about for him.”