Bob Voigts

Werner Robert Voigts (March 29, 1916 – December 7, 2000) was an American football and basketball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Northwestern University from 1947 to 1954, compiling a record of 33–39–1. Voigts led the 1948 Northwestern Wildcats team to the Rose Bowl, the first in school history, where they defeated California, 20–14.

Voigts was a native of Evanston, Illinois, where Northwestern's main campus is located. He attended Northwestern and played on the school's football team between 1936 and 1938. In his sophomore year, the Wildcats won the Big Ten Conference, and Voigts was named an All-American tackle. After college, Voigts served as an assistant football coach and head basketball coach at Illinois Wesleyan University before moving briefly to Yale University, where he was a football line coach. He entered the U.S. Navy during World War II in 1942 and was stationed outside of Chicago where he met Paul Brown, the head coach of the base's football team. When Brown became head coach of the Cleveland Browns after the war, he hired Voigts as a tackle coach. After a year with the Browns, Voigts became head coach at Northwestern.

Voigts resigned as Northwestern's head coach in 1955, citing growing criticism of his coaching after a string of losing seasons. He left football but stayed in Evanston, where he ran a real estate business for 30 years. He died in 2000.

Early life and college Voigts grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and attended Northwestern University, based in his hometown. He played tackle on the school's football team starting as a sophomore in 1936. That year, the Northwestern Wildcats posted a 7–1 win–loss record under coach Pappy Waldorf and were champions of the Big Ten Conference, a grouping of large schools from the Midwestern United States. Voigts was selected by news outlets as an All-American. Voigts also played on Northwestern's basketball team.

Coaching career Voigts became head coach of the basketball team at Illinois Wesleyan University in 1939 and was co-coach of the football team alongside Don Heap. In two years at the school, Voigts's basketball teams posted a 25–16 win–loss record.

After one season at Yale, Voigts entered the U.S. Navy during World War II. When the war ended, Paul Brown, who had been head football coach at Great Lakes, hired Voigts as a tackle coach for the Cleveland Browns, a new team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) that was to start play in 1946. He signed a three-year contract, succeeding his old coach Waldorf. This ranks him sixth all-time among Northwestern football coaches in total wins and 12th in winning percentage. His most successful year was his second season, when the Wildcats finished with an 8–2 record and won the Rose Bowl 20–14 over a University of California, Berkeley team coached by Waldorf. It was Northwestern's first-ever bowl victory and remained the only one in the school's history until the Wildcats won the 2013 Gator Bowl game in Jacksonville, Florida.

While Voigts's tenure at Northwestern started successfully, he came under increasing pressure in the early 1950s after posting a string of losing records. He resigned in February 1955, citing his failure to put together winning teams. Lou Saban, a former Browns lineman who had served as assistant to Voigts, replaced him as head coach.

Later life and death Voigts stayed in Evanston after resigning and operated a real estate business out of an office across the street from Northwestern's Dyche Stadium for 30 years.

Head coaching record Football