George MacIntyre, the coach of Vanderbilt's 1982 Hall of Fame Bowl team, died Tuesday after a lengthy battle with Multiple Sclerosis.

He was 76.

MacIntyre coached the Commodores from 1979 through 1985 and was the SEC Coach of the Year and Bobby Dodd Award winner (national coach of the year) in 1982, when Vanderbilt finished 8-4. It was his only winning season and the third time in program history the team played in a postseason bowl.

WKRN.com was the first to report MacIntyre's passing. According to the television station, he had been bed-ridden for years because of his illness, which affects the central nervous system. He was first diagnosed in 1999.

"Coach Mac was a true father figure away from home at a time before cell phones, when it was too expensive to call home," Will Wolford, an offensive lineman who had a distnguished NFL career after Vanderbilt said. "He treated us all fairly and we all had equal value in his eyes. He was a kind-hearted, southern gentleman."

MacIntyre went 25-52-1 as head coach at Vanderbilt and ranks sixth all-time for wins at the school. Prior to Vanderbilt he spent three years as head coach at Tennessee-Martin, where he won eight games in each of his last two seasons, and spent one year as offensive coordinator at Ole Miss.

"George MacIntyre made a significant contribution to the history of Vanderbilt football," former Vanderbilt athletics director and SEC commissioner Roy Kramer said. "He arrived at a time when the program was down and he brought excitement back to the campus and city. ... He was an extremely solid human being. He had concern for his players and was committed to them more than simply being their coach. He cared about their lives. He brought the qualities of honesty, integrity and character that made him successful on and off the field of play."

One of his sons, Mike MacIntyre, is the head coach at Colorado.

"I haven't come across anybody who'd say anything negative about him," his other son, Matt MacIntyre, told The Denver Post in 2012. "â¦ Every day someone says, 'You're the son of George MacIntyre?' then they'd talk about what a guy he was."

(Photo: Vanderbilt Athletics)