George Perles, a lifelong Michigan State Spartan who served many roles at the university, died Tuesday night. The former football player, coach, athletic director and university trustee was 85 years old.
“Trustee Perles was a great advocate for Michigan State University, and a warm, dear friend,” Michigan State athletic director Bill Beekman said in a statement Wednesday. “He loved the University with all his heart, serving in many different capacities. My thoughts are with Sally [Perles’ wife] and the Perles family at this difficult time.”
A Detroit native, Perles played on the offensive and defensive line for Duffy Daugherty’s Spartans in the late 1950s after a stint in the Army.
He helped create the Pittsburgh Steelers‘ famed “Steel Curtain” defense as an assistant coach in the early 1970s. He spent a decade in Pittsburgh, where he acted as a defensive line coach, defensive coordinator and eventually the assistant head coach under Chuck Noll.
Perles returned to his alma mater as the Spartans head coach in 1983. His teams in East Lansing won 73 games during his 11-year tenure as head coach. They won a Big Ten title in 1987, a season that ended with a Rose Bowl victory over USC, and a share of another title in 1990.
His career at Michigan State encountered controversy when the program was accused of using steroids during the late 1980s. Michigan State’s president forced the team to forfeit five wins from the 1994 football season after an investigation uncovered minor infractions. Perles was fired midway through the season, but allowed to finish out the year as head coach. The NCAA later cleared him of wrongdoing.
Perles also parlayed his football success into a spot as the school’s athletic director for two-plus year in the middle of his career. He ran the athletic department from January 1990 until 1992, when he stepped down from that role while continuing to coach the football team.
He was elected to the university’s board of trustees in 2006. He resigned in November 2018 in the middle of his second eight-year term on the board as his health deteriorated. The timing of his resignation sparked some controversy when the Detroit Free Press reported that the school had wiped out a $200,000 debt Perles owed the university days after he resigned. He stepped down during a time when the board of trustees was under heavy pressure for how it handled the sexual assault scandal of former university doctor Larry Nassar.
Michigan State coaches Tom Izzo and Mark Dantonio also offered their condolences to the Perles family in a statement released by the university. Both longtime coaches said that Perles was a welcoming mentor that they turned to for advice frequently during their tenures in East Lansing.
“He always brought a blue-collar mentality and really we’ve embraced a lot of things in our program over the years that came from him,” Dantonio said. “He left a legacy and was an impactful figure.”