The all-time winningest coach in Johns Hopkins football history, Jim Margraff is entering his 18th season as the head football coach at Homewood.

A 1982 Johns Hopkins graduate, Margraff returned to Homewood in 1990 to take over the reins of the Blue Jay football program. Since then, the Blue Jays have enjoyed a successful run that is unparalleled in the history of the program with the most recent period (2001-06) ranking as the most prolific in school history.

Margraff Guides Hopkins to National Success
Margraff has guided the Blue Jays to a 107-63-3 (.627) record since taking over in 1990. He became Hopkins' all-time winningest football coach with a 34-3 victory over Washington & Lee in the 2001 season-opener after entering the season tied with Ray Van Orman as the all-time winningest coach at JHU. Van Orman's record of 60 victories had stood for 66 years and nine head coaches before Margraff blew past the mark.

In addition to sitting atop the all-time victories list at Johns Hopkins, Margraff has had a great deal of success against the Centennial Conference as well. He enters this season as the third-winningest coach in Centennial history with a 69-42-2 (.619) record in league games. His .619 league winning percentage also ranks among the best in Centennial history.

The Blue Jays have enjoyed unparalleled success over the last several years as Hopkins grabbed its first-ever outright Centennial Conference Championship in 2005 after earning a share of the three previous Centennial Conference titles. The Blue Jays capped the 2005 season with the program's initial trip to the NCAA Playoffs and finished with an 8-3 record. The NCAA Playoff berth extended the team's run of consecutive post-season appearances as JHU won three straight ECAC Championships from 2002-04 and compiled a 36-8 (.818) record from 2002 through 2005.

Despite heavy graduation losses after the 2004 season, the Blue Jays entered the 2005 season as the preseason pick to win the Centennial Conference title and a pair of last-second wins in the first three weeks of the season sparked a 7-0 start that saw Hopkins jump to number 15 in the national rankings. Late-season road victories at Muhlenberg and McDaniel helped secure the outright Centennial Championship, which carried the automatic bid to the NCAA Playoffs the Blue Jays had narrowly missed out on the previous three years.

The Blue Jays, who finished with three more wins than any other team in the Centennial Conference in 2005, produced a league-best 14 all-conference performers and six players earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District accolades, including senior Jim Sanders, who went on to earn Second Team ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors.

The 2004 Blue Jays placed a school-record 15 players on the All-Centennial team, posted a 9-2 record and fought their way back from a loss in the league opener to earn a share of their third straight CC title. Hopkins capped the season with a thrilling 26-23 come-from-behind win over Waynesburg in the ECAC Southeast Championship game.

The 2003 season was the most successful in the history of the program as Margraff guided the Blue Jays to a 10-1 record, a share of a second straight Centennial Conference Championship and the ECAC South Atlantic title. The Blue Jays spent nine of 11 weeks ranked in the top 25 during the 2003 season. Prior to 2003 the Blue Jays had never been ranked in the top 25. The 7-0 start for the 2003 team was, at the time, the best in school history. The 10 wins the Blue Jays accumulated in 2003 were a school record, breaking the previous record of nine, which stood for just one year as Margraff's 2002 team posted a 9-2 record, claimed a share of the program's first-ever Centennial Conference title and won the ECAC Southwest Championship. Prior to 2002 a Johns Hopkins football team had never won more than seven games in a season.

In his first year as head coach, Margraff led the Blue Jays to their first winning season since 1985 and, at that point, the highest Centennial Conference finish ever (third) for a JHU football team. Margraff has guided the Blue Jays to 12 winning seasons during his tenure at Homewood and 14 seasons with a record of at least .500. Prior to his arrival for the 1990 season, Johns Hopkins posted a winning record just seven times in the previous 18 seasons.

Firmly established as a perennial contender for the Centennial Conference title, Hopkins was the only team in the league that finished in the top three in the final standings every year from 1994-98. The 1995 squad jump-started a four-year run that ranked as the winningest four-year period in school history (27-12-1) at the time. That year, Hopkins jumped out to a 6-1 start and made its first appearance in the NCAA regional rankings. In 1996, 1997 and 1998 the Blue Jays tied the then-school record for wins with three consecutive 7-3 seasons. In each of those years the Blue Jays were alive in the race for the Centennial title until late in the season.

In 2001, the Blue Jays posted a 6-3 overall record, including a 4-2 mark in the Centennial Conference. Along the way JHU dropped only a game to eventual national finalist Bridgewater and a pair of league games on the road by a total of 11 points.

The Blue Jays capped the 2001 season with a thrilling 21-14 victory over ninth-ranked Western Maryland. The win snapped the Green Terror's 33-game Centennial winning streak and the Terror remain the highest ranked team ever defeated by a Hopkins squad. The 2001 team led the nation in pass efficiency defense and became the first NCAA Division III team since 1980 to go through an entire season without allowing a touchdown pass. The success between 1995-2001 was a prelude to the run from 2002 through 2005, which saw the Blue Jays compile the 36-8 overall record with a school-record 11-game winning streak bridging the 2002 and 2003 seasons. The 2002 Blue Jays sprinted to a 5-0 start, at the time the best start for a Johns Hopkins football team since 1931. The 5-0 start led to the highest national ranking in school history (at the time) as JHU was ranked 26th in the AFCA Division III Poll for one week before falling to eventual Centennial co-champion Muhlenberg.

Needing a win in the last regular season game of the year to grab a share of the Centennial Conference title, the Blue Jays stunned 15th-ranked McDaniel, 27-7, and knocked off Frostburg State, 24-21, a week later in the first postseason game in school history.

Building off the success of the 2002 season, the Blue Jays began 2003 with seven straight wins and rose to a program-best ranking of 13th in the AFCA Poll. A loss on the road dashed hopes of an undefeated regular season, but the Blue Jays bounced back to win their final two games to grab a share of a second straight CC title. A dominating 41-13 win over King's in the ECAC South Atlantic Championship Game capped the record-breaking season and set the stage for the success of the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

Hopkins players have earned numerous awards and honors during Margraff's tenure. In 2003, two Blue Jays earned All-America honors (just the fourth time in school history two JHU football players were named All-America in the same year - all four instances have come since Margraff took over), and, most impressively, the Blue Jays had a national-best seven players earn CoSIDA Academic All-District honors, including five who were named to the first team (JHU had more CoSIDA Academic All-District selections than any school in the nation at any level in 2003). The Blue Jays followed that with six CoSIDA Academic All-District picks in 2004 and 2005. In recent years the Blue Jay football program has produced five NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipients, eight CoSIDA Academic All-Americas, nine NCAA Division III All-Americans, a Woody Hayes Award recipient, a NACDA-Disney Scholarship recipient and four Burger King Scholar-Athletes.

Margraff the Player
Margraff began turning hard work and dedication into success on the football field during his playing days at Hopkins. As a four-year starting quarterback for the Blue Jays, he virtually rewrote the Hopkins passing record book. Margraff is the Blue Jays' all-time statistical leader for pass attempts, pass completions, passing yardage and touchdown passes.

As a co-captain during his final year he helped lead Hopkins to a 7-2 finish, matching the school's all-time record for wins in a season at the time. In 1997, he was inducted into Johns Hopkins' Athletic Hall of Fame.

Margraff as an Assistant Coach
Margraff chose to remain in football after graduation and has been coaching since 1982. After a one-year stint coaching the quarterbacks at Hopkins, Margraff returned to his high school on Long Island and coached the Miller Place offensive and defensive backfields. In 1985 he moved back to the college ranks, coaching the offensive line at the University at Albany. Margraff is one of the many successful college and professional coaches to go through the Albany program.

In 1987 Margraff became an assistant at the University of Pennsylvania and coached the tight ends. While at Penn, he coached All-Ivy League tight end Brent Novoselsky, who went on to play in the NFL. The following year he joined the staff at the University of Rochester, working with the offensive line.

At Rochester, he worked with head coach Ray Tellier, who brought Margraff with him to Columbia University in 1989. During his time at Columbia he coached the offensive line and served as one of the staff's top recruiters. In addition to his other responsibilities, Margraff also handles the offensive coordinator's duties at Johns Hopkins. He is a member of the AFCA and the Baltimore chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame. In addition, he is entering his third year as a representative on the Division III AFCA Coaches Ranking Committee.

Margraff Personally
Margraff and his wife, Alice, reside in nearby Timonium with their 12-year-old daughter, Megan, 10-year old son, James, and seven-year old son, Will. Alice Margraff was a standout field hockey, squash and lacrosse player at Johns Hopkins and was inducted into the Johns Hopkins Athletics Hall of Fame in October, 2000. She has served a two-year term as the President of Blue Jays Unlimited, the official booster club of Hopkins athletics and is currently a member of the Johns Hopkins Athletics Hall of Fame selection committee.