Urbana University Head Football Coach Tyler Haines announced Tuesday that two former National Football League players have joined the Blue Knight coaching staff.
Stacey Hairston, former head coach at Division III Wilmington College and member of the Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys, will take over as defensive coordinator, while former New York Giant and Ohio State Buckeye Jim Cordle will oversee the UU offensive line.
“We’re thrilled to have Stacey and Jim join us here at Urbana,” Haines said. “They have both played and coached at the highest levels, and they will be great leaders for our program. We’re looking forward to building for the 2017 season with these two on staff.”
Hairston brings over 20 years of coaching experience to the Blue Knights, primarily at the Division III level. The Columbus native spent the past four seasons as Wilmington’s head football coach and both played and coached a dozen years as an assistant at Ohio Northern.
Not only does Hairston bring extensive coaching experience to the table, he played professional football for seven years. After signing as a free agent in 1989 with the Dallas Cowboys, Hairston spent a year in Dallas before playing three seasons as a starting defensive back for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.
He returned to the NFL for three seasons with the Cleveland Browns, where he was an integral part of the league’s top-ranked defense in 1994.
Hairston coached ONU’s defensive backs and special teams for seven seasons. After a short stint as the team’s interim head coach, he was promoted to co-defensive coordinator and co-special teams coordinator, where he stayed until 2008.
Cordle begins his first coaching gig with the Blue Knights after serving as a graduate assistant in 2015 and 2016 at Ohio State.
At OSU, he worked under offensive line coach Greg Studrawa, assisting with the group’s on-field instruction and meetings.
Cordle played four seasons with the New York Giants, where he saw action in 36 games and made seven starts on the offensive line. The Lancaster, Ohio, native was part of the Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI championship team.
Cordle was a three-year starter on Ohio State teams that won Big Ten championships in 2007, 2008 and 2009. He started 33 times during those three seasons and played in 41 games combined at left tackle, left guard, center and right tackle.
Cordle graduated from Ohio State in 2009 with a degree in business administration and completed his master’s in sport management from Ohio State in 2016. He earned four All-Big Ten academic awards and was OSU’s nominee for the National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete Award in 2009.
