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Ray Prochaska

American football player and coach (1919–1997)

Summary

American football player and coach (1919–1997)

Field	Value
name	Ray Prochaska
image	Ray_Prochaska.jpg
caption	Prochaska, circa 1946
number	8
position	End
birth_date
birth_place	Ulysses, Nebraska, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Orange County, California, U.S.
height_ft	6
height_in	3
weight_lb	200
high_school	Ulysses (NE)
college	Nebraska
draftyear	1941
draftround	7
draftpick	54
statlabel1	Receptions
statvalue1	4
statlabel2	Receiving yards
statvalue2	29
regular_record
pfr	P/ProcRa20
pfrcoach	ProcRa0

Cleveland Rams ()
Nebraska (1947–1948, 1950–1954) Assistant
Edmonton Eskimos (1955–1957) Assistant
St. Louis Cardinals () Offensive line
St. Louis Cardinals (1961) Interim head coach
St. Louis Cardinals () Offensive line
Los Angeles Rams () Offensive line
Cleveland Browns () Offensive line
Los Angeles Rams () Offensive line
Los Angeles Rams () Offensive coordinator
Buffalo Bills () Offensive coordinator
Seattle Seahawks () Offensive coordinator/Offensive line
First-team All-Big Six (1940)

Raymond Edward Prochaska ( ; August 9, 1919 – March 9, 1997) was an American gridiron football player and coach. He attended the University of Nebraska and played one season in the National Football League (NFL).

Biography

Ray Prochaska was born in Ulysses, Nebraska, to Emil Prochaska and Marie Fredlick, having Czech and Moravian ancestry. He attended high school in Ulysses before enrolling at the University of Nebraska, where he played college football. Prochaska helped take the Cornhuskers to the 1941 Rose Bowl, where they were defeated by the Stanford Indians, 21 to 13.

Prochaska was drafted by and made his professional debut in the National Football League in 1941 with the Cleveland Rams before leaving football for military service during World War II. He served from 1942 to 1946 in the US Army and held the rank of captain when discharged.

After leaving the military he joined the coaching staff at his alma mater, where he was assistant coach in charge of ends. In May 1955 he moved to the professional ranks, joining the staff of head coach Pop Ivy of the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League (CFL). When Ivy was named head coach of the Chicago Cardinals in 1958, Prochaska turned down an offer to take over as head coach of the Eskimos and followed his mentor to the NFL, joining him as an assistant coach on his staff.

After Ivy resigned as coach of the Cards late in the 1961 season, Prochaska joined fellow assistant coaches Chuck Drulis and Ray Willsey in sharing head coaching duties on an interim basis. The trio finished the year with a 2–0 record.

Prochaska went on to be an NFL assistant coach for a number of NFL teams, often serving under Chuck Knox, including the Los Angeles Rams, Buffalo Bills, and Seattle Seahawks.

Ray Prochaska died March 9, 1997, in Orange County, California. He was 77 years old at the time of his death.

References

[https://archive.org/details/cardinals-1962-media-guide-st.-louis-c St. Louis Football Cardinals 1962 Official Guide (scroll to page 7) – Internet Archive.] Retrieved January 20, 2025.
Prochaska. (1997). "California Death Index, 1940-1997".
Prochaska. (1920). "United States Census, 1920".
Prochaska. (1920). "United States Census, 1920".
"1941 NFL Draft Listing".
Eddie McGuire (ed.), ''Chicago Cardinals: 1951 Press, Radio and Television Guide.'' Chicago: Chicago Cardinals Football Club, 1951; p. 11.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1919-births 1997-deaths american-football-ends buffalo-bills-coaches cleveland-browns-coaches los-angeles-rams-coaches edmonton-elks-coaches nebraska-cornhuskers-football-coaches nebraska-cornhuskers-football-players st.-louis-cardinals-(football)-coaches st.-louis-cardinals-(football)-head-coaches seattle-seahawks-coaches american-military-personnel-of-world-war-ii people-from-butler-county,-nebraska players-of-american-football-from-nebraska american-people-of-czech-descent

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