Former Northern Illinois University football coach Joe Novak has died at 81. Novak led the Huskies from 1996 to 2007.
Novak turned a team that struggled to win three games over three seasons into a competitive program that became a force in the Mid-American Conference, winning multiple MAC West Division titles and appearing in the MAC Championship Game.
Current NIU play-by-play announcer Andy Garcia told WNIJ that Novak remained connected with the program after his retirement.
"[The announcers] would call [Novak] on the way to some of the games," Garcia recalls. "He was great to talk to. He loved NIU. He loved football. Once you talked to him once, you wouldn't forget him."
During a stretch of seven consecutive winning seasons from 2000-06, the Huskies under Novak achieved a national ranking in 2003, reaching as high as No. 12 in the AP poll and No. 10 in the BCS poll during a 10-2 season.
In 2004, the team went 9-3 and reached its first bowl game in 21 years, defeating the Troy Trojans in the Silicon Valley Football Classic.
Novak's efforts earned him Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2002 and American Football Coaches Association Region 3 Division I-A Coach of the Year honors in 2003.
Novak was born April 19, 1945, in Mentor, Ohio, where he played high school football. He was a defensive end for the 1965-66 MAC co-champion Miami University in Ohio, coached Warren Western Reserve High School to an Ohio state championship in 1972, then moved into the college ranks as an assistant at Miami, Illinois, Northern Illinois and Indiana before taking over at NIU.
On Nov. 26, 2007, with an overall record of 63 wins and 76 losses at NIU, Novak announced his retirement from coaching, saying it was time to step away. He remained involved with NIU athletics afterward through fundraising and other efforts.
Novak was inducted into the Miami University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2007, the Northern Illinois University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Mid-American Conference Hall of Fame in 2014.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
