Coaching and Sports Administration Career
Following his graduation, Clevenger served as head coach for the basketball and baseball teams at Indiana for two years. He then coached football, basketball, and baseball at Nebraska Wesleyan University from 1908 to 1911.
In 1911, Clevenger moved to the University of Tennessee, where he served as head football, basketball, and baseball coach until 1916. While at UT, he posted a 26–15–2 record in football, including a conference championship and the school's first undefeated season in 1914. At the same time, his 1915–1916 basketball team went undefeated, and was acknowledged as the best team in the South. Clevenger also served as athletic director at Tennessee.
Prior to the 1916 football season, Clevenger moved to Kansas State University, where he served as head football coach, head basketball coach, head baseball coach, and as the first athletic director for the school. Curiously, John R. Bender moved from Kansas State to Tennessee at the same time, so the two schools in effect swapped football coaches. Clevenger's football teams at Kansas State had an overall record of 19–9–2. He found even more success in basketball, posting a 54–17 record, still the best winning percentage in school history, and winning two Missouri Valley Conference championships.
In 1921, Clevenger left the coaching profession and moved to the University of Missouri, where he served as athletic director until 1923. In 1923, Clevenger returned to Indiana and became its most venerated athletic director, holding that position for 23 years before retiring in 1946. He was replaced in the position by Bo McMillin. While at IU, Clevenger helped found the annual East–West Shrine Game.
Read more about this topic: Zora G. Clevenger
Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or career:
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)
“My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)