Albert Dennis "Ab" Kirwan (December 22, 1904 – November 30, 1971) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach and university administrator. He was the seventh president of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

. He also was the head football coach at Kentucky from 1938 to 1944. Kirwan received the

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree from UK in 1926, an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree from the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...

in 1944 and was awarded an

LL.B. Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

degree from the Jefferson School of Law and a doctorate from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, in 1947. After leaving the football program, Kirwan took a fellowship in history at Duke University. He returned to UK as a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

and an administrator, serving as

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean Titles * ...

of men, dean of students, and dean of the graduate school. He served as president of the university for a short period in 1968 prior to Otis Singletary's presidency. Kirwan wrote or co-wrote several history books, including
Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics
'' and was a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

at other American and European universities. His legacy is remembered at UK with the naming of Kirwan Tower and the low-rise Kirwan dormitories for Dr. Kirwan. They were established in 1951 and have served as dorms for students until recently when the UK board of trustees approved funding for their demolition in 2019. Kirwan's son,

William English Kirwan William English "Brit" Kirwan (born April 14, 1938) is an American university administrator and mathematician who is chancellor emeritus of the University System of Maryland (USM) and professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Maryla ...

, a 1962 UK graduate, was the third chancellor of the

University System of Maryland The University System of Maryland (USM) is a public higher education system in the United States, U.S. state of Maryland. The system is composed of the eleven campuses at College Park, Maryland, College Park, Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimor ...

, and former president of the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

and

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

Head coaching record

References

1904 births 1971 deaths Kentucky Wildcats football coaches Kentucky Wildcats football players Presidents of the University of Kentucky Duke University alumni University of Louisville alumni Players of American football from Louisville, Kentucky Sportspeople from Louisville, Kentucky 20th-century American academics {{US-academic-administrator-1900s-stub