SAN ANTONIO – Former Texas Tech head football coach Spike Dykes passed away on Monday, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Dykes died of an apparent heart attack. He was 79.
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Dykes is best known for his tenure as head coach of the Red Raiders football team from 1986 to 1999.
He led the Red Raiders to seven bowl appearances and earned conference coach of the year honors four times.
One of those bowl appearances was in the 1996 Alamo Bowl.
He was also the first coach in Texas Tech history to beat the Texas Longhorns six times in his career.
Before his run in Lubbock, Dykes was a Texas high school coaching legend.
He began his high school coaching career at Eastland High School in 1959 and brought Midland Lee High School to prominence in the early 1980s.
Dykes was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
Dykes is survived by three children. His wife, Sharon, died in 2010.