Bob Fitch

Robert E. Fitch (July 28, 1919 – April 15, 2003) He won the NCAA Championship title in 1942 – Minnesota's first such champion. He also won the AAU national championship meet that year. After graduating college, he was drafted in the seventh round of the 1942 NFL draft by the Washington Redskins, but chose not to pursue professional football.

After graduating, he served in the United States Coast Guard for several years and was stationed Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut in 1942 as a chief boatswain's mate. While at the Coast Guard Academy, he helped coach the football team. While stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune as a coast guardsman, he was selected by the Associated Press as an end on the 1943 All-American Service team. He was discharged in the fall of 1945 as a chief specialist after 39 months of service.

After his military service, he then returned to education at Minnesota, starting a master's degree in physiology. It was in this second stint at the university that his discus throwing reached its peak. Under the guidance of Jim Kelly, Minnesota's track coach, he began experimenting with technique to find a better way of throwing the discus. Kelly credited Fitch with inventing a method of throwing called the "Minnesota Whip", which is now the accepted style worldwide. He secured the United States discus title for a second time that year.

Gordien went on to follow in Fitch's footsteps by winning the NCAA title, and had three straight wins at the competition from 1946 to 1948. Fitch was unable to start international competition – amateur athletes were self-funded at the time and he needed a job to live – but Gordien went on to win the Pan American Games title in 1955 and two Olympic Games medals in 1948 and 1956. The younger Gordien became the more decorated of the two, winning seven national titles between 1947 and 1954, He also served as an assistant college football coach for Indiana University. He asked the Indiana athletic director if he could stop coaching to focus on his doctoral studies. The director instead offered him a position to reorganise the school's golf course, which was becoming a financial drain. Fitch accepted the position, becoming the Indiana Hoosiers head coach for golf in the process. Despite strong results in sporting achievements, Fitch emphasised academics first and foremost for student-athletes. His charges remembered Fitch pushing them hard both physically and academically, in the style of his previous coach Bernie Bierman. After his retirement in 1989, Fitch later reflected "I'm mighty proud that for 10 straight years my golf team led all athletic teams on campus in grade-point average and only three players didn't graduate in the 34 years I coached golf". He died on April 5, 2003, in Bloomington, Indiana.

Head coaching record Football