AMHERST — Greg Landry, who quarterbacked UMass football to a pair of Yankee Conference championships in 1966 and 1967 behind his dual threat ability, died on Oct. 4 in Detroit. He was 77.

Landry led UMass in passing from 1965 through 1967 and paced the Minutemen in both rushing and scoring in 1965 and 1967. The Detroit Lions made him the first quarterback chosen in the 1968 NFL Draft when they took him 11th overall – still the record for the highest-drafted UMass player – and he spent 14 years in the NFL, 11 of them with the Lions, where he earned All-Pro honors in 1971.

“First off, my condolences with the Landry family,” Don Brown said to open his press conference on Monday. “Obviously a great, great, great player, not only as a college player but as a pro player as well. Our condolences. The entire UMass football program, athletic department wish his family really well.”

After a short stint in the USFL, Landry spent 10 seasons as an assistant coach with the Browns, Bears and Lions, in addition to a two-year stint at Illinois. He won Super Bowl XX as the offensive coordinator for the Bears. After retiring from coaching football in 1996, he became a local radio host and then ran a manufacturer’s representative business for automotive suppliers with his son, Greg Jr., from 2000 to 2021.

Landry passed for 16,052 yards in his NFL career to go along with 98 touchdowns and 103 interceptions. He also rushed for 2,165 yards and 21 touchdowns. In 1976, he was named NFL Comeback Player of the Year.

Landry was inducted into the UMass Athletics Hall of Fame in 1980 and was one of six Minutemen named to the Yankee Conference 50th Anniversary team in 1996. While at UMass, Landry met his wife of 47 years, Jeannine, who was also inducted into the UMass Hall of Fame as an all-around gymnast in 1981. She was the first female All-American in UMass history, led UMass to its first national title in 1973 and was the first female to be inducted into its Hall of Fame.

Landry was born in Nashua, N.H., in 1946, the second of four sons to a pair of factory workers, Alvin and Felixa (Worsowicz) Landry. He played football at Nashua Senior High School and earned a scholarship to UMass.

In Landry’s three years as the UMass starter from 1965-67, the Minutemen went 20-7, including a 14-1 mark in the Yankee Conference. 

In 1965, the first year of Alumni Stadium and the first year of Landry as the UMass starting quarterback, he threw for a then-program record 300 yards in a 41-6 victory over Vermont on Oct. 30. UMass placed second in the Yankee Conference in 1965.

In 1966, Landry led UMass to a 14-7 win over New Hampshire to claim the program’s fourth Yankee Conference title. In 1967, he led UMass past New Hampshire again, 14-13, for a second straight championship.

The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Landry was well-known for his running ability in an era where quarterbacks were usually beholden to the pocket. In the 1970 season opener, he took a quarterback sneak for 76 yards, at the time the longest run by a quarterback in NFL history.

In 1971 and 1972, his first two years as the Lions starter, he rushed for a combined 1,054 yards. The Lions often called designed running plays and option plays for him, concepts that are common now but were not widely practiced in the NFL at the time.

He earned a Pro Bowl nod in that 1971 season, a fact that became notable because no Lions quarterback repeated the feat until Matthew Stafford was named an alternate in 2014. Landry also started for the Lions in the 1970 wild card, though Detroit was shut out 5-0 by the Cowboys.

Landry was traded to the Baltimore Colts in 1979 and played three years for the franchise. After two years with the Chicago Blitz of the USFL, he played one final game as an emergency quarterback for the Bears in 1984 at the age of 37.

Landry is survived by his wife, Jeannine; his sons, Greg Jr. and Joseph; his daughters, Kathleen Tomassetti, Beth Shilakes and Mary Gordon; his brothers, Michael, Andrew and John; and 18 grandchildren.