Assistant coach After graduation from Oregon in 1950, McKay decided to become a coach. He was an assistant for the Ducks for nine seasons, one under
Jim Aiken and eight with
Len Casanova, who arrived from the
University of Pittsburgh in 1951. Improving through the 1950s, the Ducks tied for the conference title in 1957 and played in the
1958 Rose Bowl. Following the 1958 season, McKay moved south to
USC as an assistant under third-year head coach
Don Clark. A notable member of the USC staff at this time was
Al Davis, the offensive line coach. The Trojans were coming off two losing seasons, 1–9 in 1957 and 4–5–1 in 1958. They won their first eight games in 1959 but lost to rivals
UCLA and
Notre Dame to conclude the season. After failing to defeat either of the two rivals in three years, Clark resigned. McKay was hired as the Trojans' head coach for the 1960 season.
USC Trojans In his first two seasons as head coach, McKay's teams enjoyed little success, going 4–6 in 1960 and 4–5–1 in 1961. The Trojans had been on probation and had difficulty recruiting; McKay stated that these two teams were the slowest he had ever been around. Heading into the 1962 season, McKay felt he might be fired by university president
Norman Topping; alumni were pressuring Topping to fire McKay, but Topping resisted and gave McKay one more year so he could field a team with players he had recruited. Topping believed that McKay had recruited well and that the team would be successful. Topping proved to be correct. In 1962, McKay guided USC to an 11–0 record, including a 42–37
Rose Bowl victory over #2-ranked
Wisconsin, leading to a
national championship. USC won a total of four national championships (1962, 1967, 1972, and 1974) during McKay's tenure as head coach, and the 1972 squad is regarded as one of the best teams in college football history. That team went 12–0, defeating five teams ranked 18th or higher by an average of 22 points. They never trailed in the second half of any game, and their closest game was a nine-point win over Stanford. Players from that team included
Mike Rae,
Pat Haden,
Sam Cunningham,
Anthony Davis,
Lynn Swann,
Charlie Young,
Gary Jeter,
Richard Wood and
Charles Phillips. Two of his players,
Mike Garrett (1965) and
O. J. Simpson (1968), won the
Heisman Trophy. McKay popularized the
I formation and emphasized a power running game with such plays as "Student Body Left" and "Student Body Right." Through 2021, he remains the winningest head football coach in school history. On November 26, 1966, Notre Dame crushed USC 51–0 for the worst defeat in the program's history. Reportedly, after the game, McKay vowed never to lose a game to the Fighting Irish again. He denied saying it, however, and in an interview shortly before his death, he clarified that he actually said, "They'll never beat us 51–0 again." After that loss, McKay was 6–1–2 vs. Notre Dame, losing only during the Irish' national championship season of
1973. He even admitted that while growing up, being an Irish Catholic, he was a Notre Dame fan.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers After turning down several offers from NFL teams, including the
Cleveland Browns,
New England Patriots and
Los Angeles Rams, McKay was lured to Tampa Bay in
1976 to become
the Buccaneers' first head coach. Motivating his decision was the combined fivefold salary increase (totaling $2 million) and the prospect of building a franchise from the ground up. McKay's record with the Buccaneers (his entire NFL career) was a dismal 44–88–1. Despite this, McKay was posthumously inducted into Tampa Bay's "Ring of Honor" on December 5, 2010. As an NFL coach, McKay proved to be a controversial figure. He had an unpredictable personality and was capable of great warmth, but also of scathing sarcasm. Veterans felt that his aloofness hampered his ability to communicate with the team. Near the end of his tenure of head coach, he upset players by not addressing the team at any point before or after the game. He was prone to emotional outbursts, as when he called fans "idiots" for booing Bucs' quarterback
Steve Spurrier during the
expansion season, and then again later when he applied the term to reporters and opposing players who criticized the team. A
1977 wave of offseason firings saw several executives replaced by men with close ties to McKay, and left the suspicion that he was attempting to surround himself with a staff that would bow easily to his will. Similar accusations were made surrounding his handling of personnel, particularly following the 1976 season and again in the wake of a
1982 trade that sent several players to the
San Diego Chargers, alleging that his intolerance of outspoken players was causing him to cut players who could help the team. Some players resented McKay for placing his son
Johnny in the starting lineup when they felt that there were better receivers on the team, a move for which McKay humorously gave "nepotism" as the motivation. Critics frequently questioned whether McKay's biting comments were detrimental to players, some of which described his conduct as "unprofessional". McKay was noted for using the press to criticize players, as when he complained about a young running back's pass-catching ability by sarcastically referring to him as "fabulous". He responded to the ensuing controversy by repeatedly stating, "all of the players played lovely" at the following week's postgame press conference, despite the game having been a loss that eliminated the team from playoff contention. Conversely, McKay could be fiercely protective of his players. He took the media to task for publishing subtly racist descriptions of
Doug Williams that insinuated that his mental capacity was inferior, and continually referred to him as a "black quarterback" instead of "a quarterback". A public apology was required after he leveled a string of expletives against a group of fans who had directed racist comments at his players. Despite his adversarial personal relationship with Spurrier, McKay defended him against fans' criticism. He enraged the
New York Jets and incurred a large league fine in his final game, in which his attempt to secure an NFL yardage record for running back
James Wilder Sr. went to such extremes as to order the defense to lie down and allow the Jets to score a touchdown, in order to quickly regain possession of the ball. At 44 games under .500 McKay set the record for futility surpassing
Bert Bell in 1983, a record he held until
Marion Campbell passed him in 1988. ==Family and death==