Former Ohio Wesleyan University Head Football Coach, Jack Fouts died Thursday, March 1, at the age of 86.
Fouts graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in the class of 1948.
While attending OWU, he played football, basketball and baseball for the Bishops.
After OWU, he went on to earn his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.
He served from 1964-1983 as Ohio Wesleyan’s football coach and brought the team great success.
His teams were most successful from 1967-1971, during which the football team went 33-12-1.
The Bishops earned a pair of Ohio Athletic Conference crowns during the first and last of those aforementioned seasons. The team also finished second in 1968.
Fouts earned the title of Coach of the Year in 1967, NCAA College Division for District Two.
He led the Bishops to their third consecutive undefeated season.
In the fall of 1968, Fouts’ team record was 8-1, which later turned into 13 following wins.
In 1971, Fouts took the Bishops all the way to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl in Phoenix City, Ala., the Western Regional championships game of the NCAA College Division.
During 1972 he coached the West squad in the first All-Ohio Shrine Bowl game.
In 1985 Fouts was inducted into the Ohio Wesleyan Athletics Hall of Fame.
Director of Athletics Roger Ingles said his career at OWU overlapped with Fouts for three months.
“In that time I got to know one of the greatest football coaches of all time,” he said.
“He was a hard driven, dedicated man, who loved Ohio Wesleyan and his players.”
Ingles said Fouts’ passion for the success of his players in all facets of their life was unmatched.
“His former players loved and admired him for making them become men of principles and good faith,” said Ingles.
Ingles said Fouts came back for a team reunion in the early 2000’s and even then, Fouts’ passion for Ohio Wesleyan and the love his players had for him was amazing.
Tom Mulligan, Hiram College’s athletic director, said that there have been a small handful of people who have truly impacted his life.
“Jack Fouts is one of them,” he said.
“He was the reason I chose to attend Ohio Wesleyan University.”
Mulligan said Fouts impressed him as a coach who cared about his players as people and a coach who truly knew the game of football.
“He was instrumental in helping me maintain a pursuit of a college diploma,” he said.
“I graduated from Ohio Wesleyan largely due to Jack Fouts.”
Mulligan said after graduating from OWU, he chose to pursue a career in college coaching and administration.
“To this day, I remember the life lessons that Jack taught me as a young man at OWU,” he said.
“For that I am ever grateful.”