32 KEN SPARKS HEAD COACH 35th Year Carson-Newman ‘68 As Ken Sparks embarks on his 35th season he does so continuing a battle with a cancer that was diagnosed on June 30, 2012. Christian principles have been the driving force behind Sparks’ coaching career. It was his faith that brought him to Carson-Newman in 1980 and it is his faith that will see him through this latest challenge. He is the winningest active head coach in the country with 318 wins, 86 loss and two ties. He needs one victory to tie Pop Warner for sixth on the alltime wins list and six to catch Bear Winningest active head coach 308 victories Tony Dungy Uncommon Award FCA Lifetime Achievement Award AAFF Lifetime Achievement Award D-II College Football Hall of Fame, 2010 Bryant. In 2012 Sparks made history, becoming only the 11th man in college football to record 300 wins. The coach is reluctant to shine the spotlight on himself and his accomplishments. Sparks would instead rather be measured by his impact in the lives of the young men and coaches who’ve been a part of his Carson-Newman family. For Coach Sparks, football is a laboratory of learning NAIA Hall of Fame, 2009 SAC Hall of Fame, 2007 Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, 2004 Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame, 2001 where he and his staff strive to develop the whole person – educationally, socially, athletically and spiritually. Along the way, Sparks has developed one of the winningest football programs in the history of the sport. The Eagles have won five NAIA National Titles and played for it six times. A move to NCAA Division II didn’t slow Sparks’ Carson- Newman squad down. The Eagles played for the D-II National Title three times and were a semifinalist in 2009. The rest of the numbers speak for themselves as Sparks has recorded 21 South Atlantic Conference Championships, 24 NCAA or NAIA playoff appearances and a 308-83-2 record. Sparks holds the all-time record for wins in NCAA Division II and, with the recent retirement of St. John’s (Minn.) John Gagliardi and Mount Union’s Larry Kehres, Sparks is the activce leader in coaching wins. In fact, at the start of the 2013 season, he was the only active head coach with more than 265 wins. Sparks was inducted into the inaugural NCAA Division II Hall of Fame Coaches Class in 2010 along with Northwest Missouri State’s Mel Tjeerdsma and West Alabama’s Bobby Wallace. Coach Sparks is also a member of the South Atlantic Conference Hall of Fame, the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame, the Carson-Newman Athletic Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and the NAIA Hall of Fame. Sparks has been honored with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Lifetime Achievement Award and National Coach of the Year. Sparks was elected president of the American Football Coaches Association in 2007. In 2002 Sparks received the All-American Football Foundation’s Johnny Vaught Lifetime Achievement Award. Coach Sparks earned NAIA Coach of the Year honors in 1984. He’s been voted SAC Coach of the Year 12 times. Sparks is a two-time winner of the Tennessee Sportswriters Coach of the Year in 1999 and 2002 and was also named Division II Coach of the Year by American Football Coach Magazine. In 2010, Sparks received the prestigious General Robert R. Neyland Trophy, presented by the Knoxville Quarterback Club for contributing greatly to intercollegiate athletics. In 2013 he was named Jefferson Countian of the Year by the Jeffeerson County Chamber of Commerce for outstanding committment to the area. Following that he was presented the Uncommon Award by former NFL coach Tony Dungy for “uncommon leadership through character and faith.” Sparks has called the Uncommon Award one of the most meaningful of his career along with the lifetime achievement award from the FCA because of what they stand for. The Eagles’ postseason run under Sparks began in
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