Forest Evashevski

Bio

Forest Evashevski engineered one of the greatest football turnovers of all time. When he came to Iowa in 1952, the school had had only three winning seasons in 16 years, and had not won the Big 10 since 1921. Under Evashevski, Iowa became a national power, won Big Ten championships in 1956, 1958, and 1960, had seven winning seasons in nine years, and was named national champion by the Football Writers Association in 1958. He attended Northwestern High School in Detroit and graduated at age 16. Two years later he received an academic scholarship to the University of Michigan. He won three letters each in football and baseball, captained the football team, was senior class president, and won the Big Ten Medal for excellence in athletics and academics. As a football player, he was Michigan's quarterback 1938-40, serving as a devastating blocker for running back Tom Harmon. In 1941, his first year out of school, he was head coach at Hamilton College and had a 5-2 record. He served in the Navy in World War II. From 1946-49 he was assistant coach at Syracuse and Michigan State. He was head coach at Washington State 1950-51 with a record of 11-6-2. He coached Iowa 1952-60. His Iowa record was 52-27-4. He was 42 when he left coaching after the 1960 season. He was Iowa athletic director until 1970. Iowa had great victories under Evashevski. His first team in 1952 started 0-4. Coming up was a game with powerful Ohio State, which had beaten Iowa 83-21 and 47-21 the two preceding years. Evy put in a new offense, a new defense, and Iowa won 8-0. Then came the great years. Evashevski installed the wing-T offense. In 1958, Iowa led the nation in total offense, 416.7 yards per game. Iowa went 37-8-2 his last five years.