Coach (TV Series)
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40 free Coach (TV Series) trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Coach ran on ABC from 1989 to 1997 and turned a gruff college football man into one of the best-loved sitcom leads of its era. Hayden Fox wanted wins, a quiet life and a daughter who dated nobody, and he rarely got all three in the same week. This quiz covers the whole run: the Minnesota State years, the staff room with Luther and Dauber, Christine and the long road to the wedding, the famous faces from the real football world who dropped in, and the late move to the professional game in Florida. There are questions on the cast and the people behind the camera too. It is written for anyone who watched the show first time round or caught it in reruns. Most questions give you a clue to reason from, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which SpongeBob SquarePants character is voiced by Bill Fagerbakke, who played assistant coach Dauber on Coach?
Patrick Star
Patrick Star has been Fagerbakke's voice role across the whole SpongeBob franchise. Sitcom viewers met him again as Marshall's father Marvin on How I Met Your Mother.
Q 02Which actor, who played Steve Freeling in the horror film Poltergeist, starred as head coach Hayden Fox on Coach?
Craig T. Nelson
Craig T. Nelson won the 1992 Emmy for lead actor in a comedy as Hayden Fox. He also stepped behind the camera, directing many episodes of the show himself.
Q 03Luther Van Dam fears a famous curse on Coach after Hayden Fox appears on the cover of which magazine?
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated has a legendary cover jinx, said to bring bad luck to whoever appears there. Hayden earned the cover by starting the season with a top-ranked team.
Q 04Luther Van Dam plans to spend his life savings at a Las Vegas memorabilia auction devoted to which singer on Coach?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley is Luther's idol throughout the series. In the finale's epilogue he retires and builds a Graceland-style manor as a tribute.
Q 05Which NFL quarterback does Hayden Fox try to talk into donating sperm after tiring of fertility treatments on Coach?
Troy Aikman
Troy Aikman plays himself in the episode, titled The Stand-In. The quarterback spent all 12 of his NFL seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.
Q 06What nickname do Hayden Fox's Minnesota State players carry on Coach, shared with the US Army's 101st Airborne Division?
Screaming Eagles
Screaming Eagles was the show's invention: the real Minnesota State in Mankato fields the Mavericks. No school officially held the Minnesota State name while the series was on the air.
Q 07What is Christine Armstrong's job when she begins dating Hayden Fox in the early seasons of Coach?
TV news anchor
TV news anchor Christine works in the Twin Cities, so she and Hayden begin as a long-distance couple. He is often heard heading off to visit her there.
Q 08Which actor, the younger brother of a famous sitcom star, played assistant coach Luther Van Dam on Coach?
Jerry Van Dyke
Jerry Van Dyke earned four Emmy nominations as the befuddled Luther. He had made his television acting debut on his brother Dick's sitcom, playing Rob Petrie's brother Stacey.
Q 09Which actress played Christine on Coach, decades after topping the Billboard Hot 100 with the song Johnny Angel?
Shelley Fabares
Shelley Fabares earned two Emmy nominations as Christine. Her chart-topper dated from 1962, when she was a teenage star of The Donna Reed Show.
Q 10Which star of the sitcom Soap joined Coach for its last two seasons as the eccentric owner of Hayden Fox's NFL team?
Katherine Helmond
Katherine Helmond played team owner Doris Sherman, a recent widow keener on gimmicks than football. She was also Debra's mother on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Q 11Which fictional NFL expansion team hires Hayden Fox as head coach for the final two seasons of Coach?
Orlando Breakers
Orlando Breakers shared a name with the old USFL side that played in Boston, New Orleans and Portland. Nearly the whole Minnesota State crew followed Hayden to Florida, his assistants included.
Q 12Hayden Fox's NFL team reaches the playoffs in the final season of Coach, where it meets which real team?
Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills were the opponents, and Luther's love of chicken wings gave the team food poisoning right before the game. A year earlier Hayden's side had finished at the bottom of the league.
Q 13Coach creator Barry Kemp had earlier created which CBS sitcom about an author running a Vermont inn?
Q 21What job does the fussy, budget-conscious Howard Burleigh hold at Minnesota State on Coach?
Athletic director
Athletic director Howard is Hayden's boss, yet he and his cheerful wife Shirley become the Foxes' close friends. Kenneth Kimmins played him from the first season to the last.
Q 22Which Mary Tyler Moore Show regular appears on Coach as Howard Burleigh's cheerful wife Shirley?
Georgia Engel
Georgia Engel played Shirley from 1991 to the end of the run. At one point Howard hires her as his secretary, to his regret.
Q 23What kind of home does Hayden Fox live in during his Minnesota State years, and retire to in the Coach finale?
A cabin by a lake
Newhart
Newhart lasted eight seasons on CBS, and Kemp topped it with nine seasons of Coach on ABC. He had learned the trade writing for Taxi.
Q 14Hayden Fox was named for Hayden Fry, longtime football coach at which university, the alma mater of Coach's creator?
Iowa
Iowa also stands in for Minnesota State on screen: the campus and stadium exteriors were filmed in Iowa City, where creator Barry Kemp had studied.
Q 15Who won a contest in the early 1990s to record the Coach theme and then appeared in the opening credits?
A college marching band
A college marching band took the prize, and its recording stayed as the theme until the series ended. The tune itself was by John Morris, who scored many Mel Brooks films.
Q 16Which comedy veteran won a guest-actor Emmy for playing Kenny Montague, the gardener Hayden Fox fires on Coach?
Tim Conway
Tim Conway won for the 1996 episode The Gardener, then came back as the hopeless Kenny a year later. He took the same award again in 2008 for 30 Rock.
Q 17ABC made Coach the lead-in to which sports broadcast in season seven, scrambling its West Coast airtimes?
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football kicked off at 6 pm on the West Coast, so viewers there saw the sitcom after the game instead of before it. ABC moved the show to Wednesdays before the season was out.
Q 18Coach struggled in the ratings until ABC gave it the time slot directly after which hit sitcom?
Roseanne
Roseanne proved the right neighbour: ratings improved after the move and Coach ran until 1997. The actress cast as Christine said she took the part to play a successful, ambitious woman.
Q 19What is the name of Hayden Fox's daughter, who enrolls at Minnesota State to be near her father on Coach?
Kelly
Kelly had been raised mostly by her mother, so college was her chance to know her dad. He spends the early seasons struggling to accept that his little girl has grown up.
Q 20Hayden Fox's prank-war rival Judy Watkins coaches which Minnesota State team on Coach?
Women's basketball
Women's basketball coach Judy is Hayden's archenemy, which turns awkward when Dauber falls for her. She was played by stand-up comedian Pam Stone.
A cabin by a lake is where Hayden is happiest, and Luther once plans to buy the one next door to prove his friendship.
Q 24What do Hayden and Christine Fox do late in Coach's run after being unable to conceive a child?
They adopt a baby boy
They adopt a baby boy named Timothy, a role shared on screen by twins. Many final-season episodes turn on the couple's new-found joy in parenthood.
Q 25Hayden Fox cannot stand the theater student his daughter marries on Coach; what kind of performer is Stuart Rosebrock?
A mime artist
A mime artist was about the last son-in-law a football man wanted. The marriage ended when Stuart came home from filming a kids' TV show and announced he had met another woman.
Q 26Where does Hayden Fox's daughter move on Coach when an advertising agency hires her after graduation?
New York
New York all but took her out of the show: after the move she was seen only in occasional guest spots. On one visit home Hayden finds her a changed woman, and is not sure he approves.
Q 27Which former Dallas Cowboys head coach does Hayden Fox try to befriend on Coach in the hope of landing an NFL job?
Jimmy Johnson
Jimmy Johnson plays himself, one of many real football figures to drop by. Mike Ditka, Lou Holtz and Hank Stram also turned up as themselves over the years.
Q 28Which Hall of Fame Chicago Bears linebacker plays himself on Coach, taking over as Hayden Fox's defensive coordinator?
Dick Butkus
Dick Butkus is hired when Luther is promoted to general manager, and promptly starts taking over the team. Years earlier he had been a guest at Hayden's bachelor roast.
Q 29How does Hayden Fox propose to Christine in the fifth-season opener of Coach?
On live television
On live television made it a proposal she could hardly duck. Reaching the altar took longer: later that season the couple were in Las Vegas taking another shot at getting married.
Q 30Which pet of Luther Van Dam's bites Hayden Fox on Coach, putting the whole coaching staff into quarantine?
A monkey
A monkey was not Luther's first biter: his dog Quincy once faced being put down for sinking his teeth into Riley Pringle, a prickly Minnesota State colleague.