Former University of Hawai'i head football coach Dick Tomey passed away after a battle with lung cancer.
 
Tomey coached UH for 10 seasons from 1977-86, compiling a 63-46-3 record, and spent one season as special teams coordinator in 2011. He is a member of the school's Sports Circle of Honor.
 
During his tenure, Tomey led the Rainbow Warriors into the Western Athletic Conference in 1979 and the program's first national ranking in 1981. In just his second season, he nearly led UH to an upset of eventual national champion USC in the 1978 regular season finale. Tomey guided the Rainbow Warriors to a pair of runner-up finishes in the WAC and four 7+-win seasons.
 
Tomey was instrumental in scheduling big-name opponents, the likes of Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Michigan, and South Carolina. His 1981 squad finished the year with a 9-2 record and runner-up WAC finish. He also coached UH's only Associated Press first-team All-American in Al Noga in 1986, his final year with Hawai'i.
 
Tomey was also head coach at the University of Arizona from 1987-2000 and San Jose State from 2005-09. He compiled a 183-145-7 all-time record in 29 seasons as a Division I head coach. He currently ranks 19^thin games coached (335) and 39^thin victories (183) for a NCAA Division I-A/Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) head coach through the 2018 season. 
 
Tomey left Hawai'i for the Pac-10's Arizona Wildcats in 1987 and led the program to seven bowl appearances in 14 seasons. Tomey's "Desert Swarm" defense of the mid-1990s helped the Wildcats to two 10-win seasons including a 12-1 mark and No. 4 national ranking in 1998. The winningest coach in UA history, Tomey coached five NFL first round picks, 20 All-Americans, and 43 first-team Pac-10 players and was picked as Pac-10 Coach of the Year in 1992.
 
He later coached San Jose State for five seasons and led the Spartans to a 9-4 record in his second year in 2006. The Spartans finished that season third in the WAC standings and defeated New Mexico in the New Mexico Bowl, which snapped a 16-year bowl drought.
 
In 2009, Tomey was named the president of the 10,000-plus member American Football Coaches Association. More than 35 of his coaching protégées were either in the National Football League or coaching at the NCAA FBS level. Rich Ellerson (Army), Pat Hill (Fresno State), June Jones (SMU), Ron McBride (Weber State), Tom Williams (Yale), and Dino Babers (Syracuse) were head coaches at FBS programs.
 
Tomey's coaching career began in 1962, when he was a graduate assistant at Miami (Ohio). He later was an assistant coach at Northern Illinois, Davidson, Kansas, and UCLA before taking the head-coaching job at UH.
 
Following his tenure at Arizona, Tomey took two seasons off before returning to coaching with the San Francisco 49ers in 2003 and as assistant head coach and defensive ends coach at Texas in 2004.
 
Tomey and his wife Nanci have four children and five grandchildren.