After the 1932 season, University of Chicago president Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins forced out 70-year-old head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, whom he considered too old for the position. Stagg then moved on to coach at the College of the Pacific. Athletic director T. Nelson Metcalf hired Shaughnessy to replace Stagg as head coach in 1933. Shaughnessy inherited a difficult situation at Chicago, and for the most part, lacked good material. He did, however, inherit from Stagg at least one important recruit: inaugural Heisman Trophy winner and future Hall of Fame back Jay Berwanger, whom many Midwest pundits considered the best back of the 1930s.