Mr McNea passed away on March 6, 2010 – http://reviewonline.com/page/content.detail/id/524715.html?nav=5010

Here is a summary of that story…

Former East Liverpool football coach Robert N. McNea, once an Ohio State assistant football coach and a 1988 inductee to the Ohio High School Football Coach’s Hall of Fame, died at 10:10 a.m. Saturday, March 6, 2010, at Lakewood Hospital after falling at his home three days earlier. He was 87.

McNea was a native of Cleveland, where he was graduated from East High School. He served as a naval officer in World War II and then obtained his college degree from Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. It was here that he studied under Sid Gillman, a Hall of Fame football coach who was light years ahead of his peers. Gillman put both a scientific and academic emphasis on the game, and it didn’t take a young Bob McNea long to pick up on this approach, which would one day develop into a style that became known in coaching circles as the West Coast Offense.

He began his coaching career as an assistant for five years at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He then served two seasons as the head football coach at Leetonia, where his 1954 team was undefeated.

It was then on to Mansfield in central Ohio where McNea had outstanding success, also serving as director of the Ohio High School All-Star game before an old Miami classmate, Ara Parseghian, hired him as backfield coach at Northwestern University. It was here (1958-62) that the Wildcats defeated Notre Dame four consecutive times, but salary differences caused McNea to move on to Kent State as an assistant in anticipation of being named head coach to replace 18-year veteran Trevor Rees. The call never came; instead he was hired to come to East Liverpool.

From 1964-68, McNea completely revolutionized the program at East Liverpool High School, winning 37 games while losing only 10, the best percentage in school history. As athletic director, he developed a sound financial foundation and was deeply involved in the passing of the levy that led to the construction of the new high school during his time in the community. To this day, his revolutionary and cerebral approach to the game has been carried on by a great number of followers, some of which never met him.

From East Liverpool, McNea made coaching stops at Massillon Jackson High School (1970-72) and South Range High School (1973-78) when Ohio State coach, Earle Bruce, a former assistant to McNea at Mansfield Senior High School, called on his old boss naming him recruiting coordinator for the Buckeyes from 1979 until his retirement in 1987.

During his time at The Ohio State University, McNea was instrumental in the design of the Woody Hayes Indoor Sports Complex and a major influence in the coaching career of Women’s Basketball Coach Terra Vandervehr who went on to coach the 1996 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team.

McNea was named to the Ohio High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame in 1988 and to the East Liverpool High School Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. His final coaching record was 120-49-6.

Through the East Liverpool High School Alumni Association, he and a former assistant coach, the late Frank Moss, established a scholarship fund currently valued at $50,000 for deserving seniors at ELHS. Some 20 students have been assisted with their college expenses through the gift. The same amount has been placed in an endowment at Washington (Pa.) High School where Mr. Moss was graduated.

Funeral services and burial will take place in Clevealnd.