Marino Casem

CTL-E-7055 · Person · other · 1934–2020

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07927 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7055.

Marino Casem, born June 23, 1934, in Memphis, Tennessee, and deceased in 2020 at age eighty-five, was head football coach at Alcorn State for twenty-two seasons, from 1964 to 1985, while also serving as the school's director of athletics for twenty years. The Southwestern Athletic Conference, which knew him as 'The Godfather,' records that he is the winningest football coach in Alcorn history with a 132-65-8 record there, that Alcorn won seven SWAC championships under him, that he was named SWAC Coach of the Year seven times, and that his Braves won four Black National Titles, in 1967, 1968, 1973 and 1984. After Alcorn he served as athletics director at Southern University from 1986 to 1999, with two stints as Southern's football coach in between, and he was named to the SWAC, Alcorn and College Football halls of fame.

The record

• Also known as: Marino H. Casem, The Godfather

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0435. Firsts disposition: BCFHOF's claim that Casem's 1984 Alcorn team was the first HBCU to finish No. 1 in the Division I-AA poll is carried attributed to BCFHOF, not as an unqualified first. The assignment's 'dean of SWAC coaches' framing was NOT found in the cited authoritative sources — SWAC and Alcorn sources use 'The Godfather' / 'Godfather of the SWAC,' and that sourced framing is carried instead. A 'Grambling athletics-director chapter' was NOT sourced: the cited sources place his athletics-director service at Alcorn State and Southern University only, so no Grambling AD claim is made. Hall-of-fame induction years are reported inconsistently across sources (SWAC/Alcorn list College Football Hall of Fame 1998; BCFHOF/Wikipedia list 2003) — no year is asserted in the description. Black National Title years also differ by source (SWAC: 1967, 1968, 1973, 1984; BCFHOF: 1968, 1969, 1974, 1984) — the SWAC version is carried and the variance noted, not blended. Career record carried per-source (Alcorn 132-65-8 per SWAC/NFF; career 159-93-8 per BCFHOF). Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Casem's authority ran beyond one sideline — coach, athletics director and conference elder — which is why the conference itself called him its Godfather. Photo: CLEARED, Public domain, 1974 Alcorn State yearbook photograph, file description names Marino Casem of Alcorn State.

Sources

• Southwestern Athletic Conference. "SWAC Mourns Loss of Legendary Coach and Administrator Marino Casem." SWAC.org. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• National Football Foundation. "Marino Casem — profile." FootballFoundation.org. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
• Black College Football Hall of Fame. "Marino 'The Godfather' Casem — inductee profile." BlackCollegeFootballHOF.org. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-7055 · Combined Graph record U-07927 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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