Portal:American football/Selected biography/July, 2007

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fielding Yost was an American football coach best known for his long tenure at the University of Michigan. He was born in Fairview, West Virginia. Yost was a lawyer, author, and businessman in addition to being a well known football coach.

After three single-season stints at Nebraska, Kansas, and Stanford, Yost served as the head football coach for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1901 through 1923, and again in 1925 and 1926. Yost was highly successful at Michigan, winning 165 games, losing only 29, and tying 10 for a winning percentage of .833. Under Yost, Michigan won four straight national championships from 1901-04 and two more in 1918 and 1923.

Yost's first Michigan team in 1901 outscored its opposition by a margin of 550-0 en route to a perfect season and victory in the inaugural Rose Bowl on January 1, 1902 over Stanford, the school Yost had coached the year before. From 1901 to 1904, Michigan did not lose a game, and was tied only once in a legendary game with the University of Minnesota that led to the establishment of the Little Brown Jug, college football's oldest trophy. Before Michigan finally lost a game to Amos Alonzo Stagg's University of Chicago squad at the end of the 1905 season, they had gone 56 straight games without a defeat, the second longest such streak in college football history. During their first five seasons under Yost, Michigan outscored its opponents 2,821 to 42, earning the nickname "Point-a-Minute."

(more)