Pete Rodriguez (July 25, 1940 – November 30, 2014) was an American football coach of Mexican American descent.^[1][2]

Rodriguez broke into coaching as a graduate assistant at Arizona (1968–69) and later served as defensive coordinator at Western Illinois (1970–73), Florida State (1974–75), Iowa State (1976–78) and Northern Iowa (1986). He served as head coach at Western Illinois from 1979–82.

In July, 2010 the Los Angeles Times reported that he was the coach hired by Pete Carroll as a special consultant for USC's kickers during the 2008 football season. The use of additional coach was one of the items that the NCAA found to be a Major Violation and subjected USC to the "Loss of institutional control" finding. Carroll had defended the hiring as being done with the knowledge of the USC compliance staff however the compliance staff reported that this was not the case.^[3]

One of Rodriguez's daughters, Regina M. Rodriguez, is an attorney who was nominated multiple times to serves as a federal judge on the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.^[4]

Rodriguez died in San Diego^[5] on November 30, 2014, of a complication following an undisclosed surgery, after being in a coma for months.^[6]