Posted May 17, 2010    

•Carol Warmath Dillow

•Murray Warmath

•Rose Bowl Memories

•Billy Warmath

•Bobby Bell

Golden Gophers Lose a Special Fan 

Family and friends said goodbye to Carol Warmath Dillow on Friday.  The funeral service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Edina was near the family home where she grew up as the daughter of former Gophers football coach Murray Warmath. 

Those who attended the service and later the reception at Edina Country Club remembered Carol for her love of family that includes husband Dick and their children.  They also recalled her passion for football and knowledge of the game. 

Family friend Peter Franzen has heard stories of a young Carol seeing light flickering from a movie projector late at night in the Warmath home on Bruce Avenue in Edina.  Her father was analyzing football film while most people were sleeping.  “She would crawl up on his lap,” Franzen said. 

Warmath had a high football IQ and some of that was passed on to Carol who was a Gophers fan for six decades.  Franzen said she understood the technical side of the game and could see a big play coming before it developed.  

“She should have been a football coach,” Warmath said. “She knew more about football than most anyone I’ve ever met.” 

Carol even made her wedding come after football.  She and Dick were married on a Gophers football Saturday in October of 1967, FOLLOWING the game.  

Carol, who died from ovarian cancer last month, wasn’t hesitant to express herself and was protective of her dad.  If someone was bashing her father’s coaching, the critic might receive an earful from Carol.   

That loyalty was at least partly forged during her teenage years when she and the family endured intense criticism of their father.  In the late 1950s the Gophers were losing Saturday after Saturday.  There was a movement to fire Warmath, and the lunatic fringe dumped garbage on the coach’s lawn in Edina while on campus he was hung in effigy.   

The story turned from garbage to roses, though, when Warmath followed a 2-7 season in 1959 with a national championship in 1960 and a trip to the Rose Bowl.  He coached the Gophers to another Rose Bowl in 1962 and a Big Ten championship in 1967, the school’s last title.

Warmath coached his 18^th and final season at Minnesota in 1971.  Although Carol had moved away by then, she returned for each of her father’s final home games.

 

Coach Struggles with Passing of Wife, Children

Warmath’s last team finished with a 4-7 record.  Recruiting success and fan support had slipped since the 1960s and a nervous administration decided to change head football coaches, but no one since has been able to duplicate Warmath’s achievements at Minnesota.

In recent years Carol travelled frequently from her home in Kansas City to see her dad, now 97. He’s often in a wheelchair and living in a suburban Minneapolis retirement facility.  She was here in March, despite her fight with cancer. 

Carol, 65, had won a battle with melanoma a few years ago.  Like her dad, she was a fighter and survivor.   

Warmath saw his youngest child, Billy, pass away years ago at age 30.  He lost his wife Mary Louise in 2002 and now Carol.  Warmath’s oldest child, Murray Jr., attended the funeral on Friday.  

Franzen said Warmath frets about the fates of his children and wife while being grateful for his own longevity and blessings.  “He feels it’s unfair that they went so early,” Franzen said.  “That they didn’t have a long life like him.” 

Warmath is often reminded of Billy’s passing by the four seasons of the year.  “He will say Billy would be fishing, or we’ll drive by someplace where he and Billy played golf,” said Franzen who was a good friend of the younger Warmath. 

Warmath loved the outdoors, including hunting and fishing.  These days most of his time is spent at his residence where he often has visitors including players from all his years coaching the Gophers. 

 

Family Atmosphere Characterized Gophers 

Those in attendance at Carol’s funeral included former players and coaches during the Warmath era.  Some came from out of town including Bobby Bell, the two-time All-American who more than any player was responsible for a remarkable run from 1960-62 when the Gophers won 22 of 29 games. 

Like Carol, Bell lives in the Kansas City area.  He was making a public appearance in December of last year when he saw Carol.  It was a connection he will long remember and be grateful for.  

Bell knew Carol when he played for the Gophers. “All the coaches just treated us like part of the family,” Bell said.  

In December Carol modestly told Bell he didn’t remember her.  He replied: “Oh, yes I do.”  And then he gave her hug. 

Carol remembered Bell and a long list of other Gophers who played for her father.  Even last year she was back in Minneapolis to watch the Gophers play in their new stadium.  She never forgot her alma mater and the place her dad earned so much fame.   

Carol Warmath Dillow was a special Golden Gopher.  And at the funeral service to celebrate her life last Friday the processional music couldn’t have been more appropriate:  

The “Minnesota Rouser!”

 

Carol Warmath Dillow

Murray Warmath