Jack Cosgrove spent 36 years with the University of Maine’s football program as a player, assistant coach and head coach before serving as a senior associate director of athletics.
He has been inducted into the state of Maine and University of Maine Sports Halls of Fame. Now he will be inducted into the UMaine football program’s prestigious Ring of Honor during the upcoming season.
Cosgrove, who has been the head football coach at Waterville’s Colby College since 2018, will be the sixth member of the Ring of Honor, joining former UMaine greats and National Football League players John Huard, Chris Keating and Mike Flynn along with Black Bear standout and American Football Leaguer Thurlow Cooper and longtime Black Bear head coach and Athletic Director Harold Westerman.
Cosgrove leads all UMaine head coaches in wins with 129 and in games with 264 during his 23 seasons at the helm. He was 123-112 over his last 20 campaigns.
He had nine winning seasons, including five with eight or more wins. He won three conference championships and led his Black Bear teams to five Football Championship Subdivision playoff berths and three FCS playoff wins.
Cosgrove was a three-time finalist for the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year Award, a recipient of the American Football Monthly I-AA (now FCS) National Coach of the Year award and a two-time Atlantic-10 Coach of the Year and New England Football Writers FCS Coach of the Year.
The 69-year-old native of Sharon, Massachusetts, was chosen the 2013 Colonial Athletic Association Coach of the Year after he guided his Black Bears to the CAA title and their first ever home FCS playoff game against the University of New Hampshire.
He led the Black Bears to a share of Atlantic-10 regular season championships in 2001 and 2002.
His 2002 team posted 11 wins, which still stands as a school record.
“I am truly honored by the recognition bestowed my way through this very prestigious award,” Cosgrove said in a press release. “The Cosgrove family is extremely grateful for the experiences we lived with an incredible group of talented student-athletes that have forever impacted our lives. Black Bears for life!”
Current UMaine head coach Jordan Stevens, who played for Cosgrove, said Cosgrove’s induction into the UMaine Football Ring of Honor is a “fitting tribute to one of the most influential figures in the history of our program. The standard of attitude, effort, and discipline that he established continues to shape Maine Football today.”
Prior to Cosgrove’s induction into the UMaine Sports Hall of Fame in 2021, former UMaine star and longtime NFL defensive lineman Mike DeVito said Cosgrove “had a knack for finding guys that were truly diamonds in the rough.”
“He really embodied and defined what it means to be a Black Bear,” DeVito said. “It’s very rare that you find somebody that buys into a program and sells out for years and years and sacrifices so much because he truly loves the program. That rubbed off on everybody who was part of that program.”
Cosgrove, who was inducted into the state of Maine’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, was named head coach at his alma mater on Feb. 22, 1993.
Cosgrove earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s in educational administration from UMaine in 1978 and 1981, respectively. During his time at UMaine, Cosgrove was a two-time second-team All-Yankee Conference quarterback and an ECAC All-Star.
He is ranked in the top 15 in school history in passing yards with 2,836.