Longtime Iowa football assistant coach Bill Brashier dies

Bill Brashier, a longtime Iowa football assistant coach and former defensive coordinator in the Hayden Fry era, died at age 93.

Brashier was Fry’s first Iowa staff in 1978, first as a defensive backs coach and then as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach. He retired after the 1995 season.

“Bill Brashier was a tremendous defensive coach,” Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz said in a news release. “I was honored to coach alongside him as a young assistant. He got the absolute best out of all of his players every single day. They loved and respected him as a leader and as a person.”

When Fry won his 200th game in 1993, he said “this trophy represents Bill Brashier as much as it does me,” according to The Gazette’s archives.

Ferentz described Brashier as an “incredible mentor” to him and other coaches in the Fry coaching tree such as Barry Alvarez and Dan McCarney.

“Bill was never flamboyant or flashy,” Ferentz said. “He didn’t seek the spotlight. As a coach, he was without peer.”

Ferentz previously told The Gazette Brashier “was the foundation” of what Iowa did in the 1980s and 1990s.

“Coach Fry was obviously the guy, but the role that Bill had and Bill Snyder, too, but Bill left, but Bill Brashier was so understated,” Ferentz said in 2015.

Brashier also coached with Fry when he was at North Texas and played there. He was inducted into the North Texas Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com