Auburn’s athletics department will endow a professorship in memory of coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan.

Athletics Director Jay Jacobs said the department, which is acting in conjunction with the Tigers Unlimited Foundation, wanted to support Auburn’s academic mission and President Jay G. Gogue’s initiative to increase professorships on campus.

“We are committed to supporting the academic mission of Auburn University, not only for our student-athletes but for the campus as a whole,” Jacobs said. “There is no better way for us to do that than to endow a professorship in honor and memory of coach Shug Jordan, the most successful coach in Auburn history and one of the finest gentlemen to ever serve the university.”

The endowment carries a price tag of $300,000, half from the athletics department and half from a donor’s matching gift. Provost Mary Ellen Mazey will award the professorship to a deserving faculty member of her choice.

Jordan began with Auburn as head men’s basketball coach for 10 years and as an assistant in the football program before he joined the Army. A World War II vet, Jordan received the Purple Heart for injuries sustained at Utah Beach during the Normandy invasion. After his service was up, Jordan coached basketball, then left for a brief stint as a football assistant at Georgia. He returned to Auburn in 1951 to serve as head football coach. He won the national championship six years later and went on to serve as head coach for 25 years. He retired in 1975 and died in 1980.

His son, Ralph Jordan Jr., attended the ceremony announcing the endowment.