Bio

Jim Carmody is a 1954 graduate of Co-Lin, where he was a co-captain of the Wolfpack football team and a member of the baseball team. He attended Tulane University, where he was a two-year football letterman, received bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and led the football team to its first winning season in five years. Carmody began his coaching career in the armed services in Korea. He served as an assistant football coach at Tulane, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and North Carolina before he became the defensive coordinator at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he was nicknamed “Big Nasty” as coordinator of the “Nasty Bunch” defense. He spent a season as an assistant coach in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills before returning to Southern Miss as the head football coach, where he boasted a winning record in five of six seasons, including an upset that was the most points scored against a Bear Bryant team in Tuscaloosa, ending a 57-game Alabama winning streak. Following his career at Southern Miss, Carmody coached at Mississippi State, Mississippi College, and Ole Miss before returning to the NFL as a scout for the Arizona Cardinals for 10 years before his retirement in 2005. Carmody was inducted into the Co-Lin Sports Hall of Fame in 1993, the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, and the University of Southern Mississippi Hall of Fame in 2009. He was honored as Co-Lin’s Alumnus of the Year in 2014. He is married to Earlyn “Noonie” Carmody, a former Miss Louisiana. They have four sons, Steve, Brian, Keith and Chris, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.