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Don Pellum

American football player and coach

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ16194747
Source-derived summary

Don W. Pellum (born January 26, 1962) is an American former college football coach. He most recently was the linebackers coach for the UCLA Bruins football team.

Education and playing career

Pellum was a starting linebacker for Oregon under former head coach Rich Brooks. He earned a pair of undergraduate degrees in telecommunications and film as well as rhetoric and communications, from the University of Oregon in 1985. He also received a minor in sociology. Pellum proceeded to earn his master's degree in telecommunications and film the following year in addition to completing work toward his Ph.D.

Coaching career

Pellum was a positions coach at the University of Oregon for 23 years; starting as a graduate assistant working with tight ends in 1985, and then coaching safeties and defensive lineman before serving as linebackers coach for 14 seasons.

He had two breaks from Oregon, serving as defensive line coach, strength and conditioning director, and academic coordinator at Willamette University in 1987. From 1990 to 1992, Pellum was the recruiting coordinator at the University of California, as well as the assistant athletics director for student services at Berkeley in 1992 before returning again to the Ducks in 1993.

On January 14, 2014, Pellum was named Oregon's defensive coordinator, replacing his former mentor Nick Aliotti.

On January 4, 2016, following one of the worst defensive seasons in Oregon football history, Pellum was demoted to linebackers coach.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Don Pellum” as american football player and coach. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1962, 1985, 1987, 1990—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1962-01-26. The account is most persuasive where Pellum, American and football can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american football player and coach. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16194747. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1985, 1987 and 1990.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Don Pellum”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Don Pellum primary sources, Don Pellum archive and Pellum research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Don Pellum”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Don Pellum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.