When Nassau Community College started its football program in 1968, it was looking for a dynamic leader who could build a winning culture.

Jim Weinman was the perfect choice. A knowledgeable strategist with a gregarious personality, Weinman was an almost instant success.

“I don’t think there was ever a better college football coach on Long Island,” said Mike Candel, a former Newsday sportswriter who was a colleague of Weinman’s at Nassau Community College. “He was a magnetic person. That’s the best way I can put it. There were people who were suggesting that he should run for office.”

Weinman, a father of three who coached football at Nassau Community College for 19 seasons, died Nov. 21 at his home in West Palm Beach, Florida, his family said. He was 88.

He is in the SUNY Cortland C-Club Hall of Fame and the NJCAA Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

“He could walk into a room with 100 people, and people would think he was there to talk to them,” said John Anselmo, 73, of Florida, Weinman’s defensive coordinator at Nassau Community College. “He just commanded the room when he walked into it.”

After coaching football at three upstate high schools, Weinman was named Nassau Community College’s first coach and earned the team a bid in the Sterling Silver Bowl in Sterling, Kansas, in 1969. In 1970, the team played in the El Toro Bowl in Arizona.

“He was always studying the game,” said his son, Gregg Weinman, 66, of LeRoy, New York. “I remember when I was a little kid, the film projector was always running in our dining room. Wherever we lived, he was constantly getting film and breaking it down. He was very analytical and methodical.”

Weinman’s Nassau Community College teams went 136-38-1, according to Newsday records. They went to three national bowl games, had three undefeated seasons and were ranked among the top 10 junior college teams in the country at the end of 10 different seasons, according to his bio on SUNY Cortland’s athletic website.

“He put junior college football on the map in New York,” Anselmo said.

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