Gustave Ferbert

Gustave Herman Ferbert (July 22, 1873 – January 15, 1943), nicknamed "Dutch", was an American college football player and coach. He was first a player from 1893 to 1896 and then the head football coach from 1897 to 1899 at the University of Michigan. His 1898 Michigan team went 10–0 and won the first Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) championship in the school's history. Ferbert compiled a record of 24–11–3 as head coach of the Michigan Wolverines football team. He was also co-head football coach with Joseph R. Hudelson at Indiana University for one season, in 1894, while still a student at Michigan.

Ferbert left the University of Michigan in 1900 and spent nine years prospecting for gold in Alaska, finally striking it rich off claims he discovered in 1908 and 1909.

Early life Ferbert was born in 1873, in Cleveland, to John C. Ferbert and Caroline Striebinger.

University of Michigan football player Ferbert played quarterback and right halfback for the University of Michigan from 1893 to 1896. Neither team resorted to trick plays, "both relying on straight, hard football."

In 1894, Ferbert was also co-coach with Joseph R. Hudelson of the football team at Indiana University Bloomington at Indiana University—now known as Indiana University Bloomington. The 1894 Indiana Hoosiers football team compiled a record of 0–4–1.

University of Michigan football coach

After his graduation, Ferbert was named as Michigan's head football coach at age 22. All the scoring took place in the first half, and the score would have been much worse if Ferbert had wanted to run up a higher score.

"Champions of the West" in 1898 The 1898 Wolverines went 10–0 and won the Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) championship. The first great Michigan football team, the 1898 group outscored its opponents 205 to 26. In the first meeting with what would become Michigan State, Michigan prevailed 39–0, and they also shut out Notre Dame, 23–0. The team finished the season traveling to Chicago for a final game against Amos Alonzo Stagg's University of Chicago team on November 24, 1898. Led by All-American center, William Cunningham, Michigan came out on top, 12–11, for its first Western Conference championship.

A newspaper account described Michigan's victory this way: "The western football championship goes to Michigan. On a field that was simply perfect for fast football, and before a crowd of 12,000 the maroons of Chicago went down before the maize and blue of Michigan today by a score of 12 to 11. . . . The Michigan line, in which big holes were torn by the light Northwestern team, was simply impregnable today, with the exception of about ten minutes in the second half, when the Chicago men pushed their opponents aside with an apparent ease."

Another article noted: "Michigan, with the exception of one or two double passes, relied almost altogether on straight football, line bucking and runs around the end. Chicago, on the contrary, used trick plays throughout but the team work was of a high order, as shown by both teams."

During Ferbert's three-year tenure as Michigan's head football coach, his teams were 24–3–1, a winning percentage of .875. From 1898 to 1899, his Michigan teams had a 16-game winning streak.

Gold prospecting in Alaska After his coaching career at Michigan, Ferbert went to Alaska to search for gold. In May 1900, amid the Klondike Gold Rush, newspapers reported that Ferbert had left Ann Arbor for Seattle, where he planned to join "High" Allen and "Count" Villa, described as "two other prominent Michigan football men." Ferbert, Allen and Villa intended to "proceed to the Alaska gold fields," leaving unsettled the question of who would coach the Michigan football team in 1900.

Another article reported on Ferbert's $1,000,000 "Touchdown in the Arctic." The article reported that Ferbert's parting words were that he would return rich or not at all. Ferbert made a "killing," the report continued, near Doering City in the Candle Creek region in 1908 and 1909, and "it is reported that his claims are valuable enough to put him in the millionaire class."

Later life When Ferbert returned from Alaska, he practiced as a mining engineer and consultant until his retirement in 1928. At the time of the 1920 United States census, he was living in Whittier, California, and his occupation was listed as a miner in a private mine.

Ferbert's brother, A. H. Ferbert, was the president of the Pittsburgh Steel Co. Ferbert moved to Cleveland in approximately 1942, where he lived with his brother. Ferbert died at age 69, on January 15, 1943, of a heart ailment, coronary thrombosis, in Cleveland.

Head coaching record