Clifford Carlson
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Henry Clifford "Doc" Carlson (July 4, 1894 – November 1, 1964) was an American basketball coach and football player. He is a
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inductee as the
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coach of his alma mater, the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
, from 1922 to 1953. At Pitt he compiled a record of 367–247 record (.595). His 1927–28 team finished the season with a 21–0 record and was retroactively named the national champion by the
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and the
Premo-Porretta Power Poll The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons. The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...
; Carlson's Panthers would receive retroactive recognition as the Helms national champion for the 1929–30 season as well. Carlson also led Pitt to the Final Four in 1941. As a student at the university, Carlson was also a First Team All-American
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on Pitt's football team under coach
"Pop" Warner Glenn Scobey Warner (April 5, 1871 – September 7, 1954), most commonly known as Pop Warner, was an American college football coach at various institutions who is responsible for several key aspects of the modern game. Included among his inn ...
. Carlson also lettered in basketball and
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.


Biography

Carlson was born in
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. He played high school football, basketball, and baseball (1910–1914) at
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in
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania Bellefonte is a borough in, and the county seat of, Centre County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is approximately twelve miles northeast of State College and is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The bor ...
. During his undergraduate years at the University of Pittsburgh (1914–1918) he earned three letters in basketball, two in baseball, four in football. He played on the 1916 Pitt football team that is widely regarded as that season's national champion and was selected as an All-American football player while playing for Pitt's undefeated 1917 team. After graduation in 1918, Carlson completed his medical degree at Pitt in 1920, but then joined the
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professional football team for one season. When in 1922 Andrew Kerr, who was Pitt's basketball coach and assistant football coach, left to become football head coach at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...
, Pitt hired "Doc" Carlson as its new basketball coach. Simultaneously he practiced as a physician for the Carnegie Steel Company. Carlson was famous for his Figure 8 offense, an innovation that many coaches copied. In 1928 Pittsburgh went a perfect 21–0 and the national championship. His Panthers won another national title in 1930. (Both were selected as national champions, prior to the advent of NCAA Tournament, by the Helms Athletic Foundation.) He also led the Panthers to Eastern Intercollegiate Conference championships in four out of the seven years of the conference's existence. In 1931 Carlson became the first Eastern coach to take a collegiate team westward, going on the road to beat the
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, the
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, Stanford, and the
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. He also wrote the book ''You and Basketball''. Legend has it that Carlson offered
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a basketball scholarship to Pitt, but Musial only wanted to play baseball, and had secretly signed a contract with the
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'
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ball club of the Class D Pennsylvania State League Association. Carlson became Pitt's director of student health services in 1932 and held that position until his retirement in 1953. Apart from his brief stint in the NFL, he spent the first 43 years of his adult life at Pitt as a student and coach. He died November 1, 1964 at his home in
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. Carlson was inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame in 1949, the
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and prese ...
in its inaugural class in 1959, and the
National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a hall of fame and museum dedicated to men's college basketball. The museum is an integral portion of the College Basketball Experience created by the National ...
in its inaugural class of 2006.


Head coaching record

* Eastern Intercollegiate Conference championships between teams with identical records were decided by a one–game playoff in these seasons (included in conference record totals).


See also

*
List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach This is a list of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament regional championships by coach. The current names of the NCAA tournament regions are the East, Midwest, South, and West. The winners of the four regions are awarded an NCAA Regiona ...


References

*


External links

* *
''Basketball, the American Game'' Manuscript
at Dartmouth College Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Carlson, Doc 1894 births 1964 deaths American football ends American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Baseball players from Pennsylvania Basketball coaches from Pennsylvania Basketball players from Pennsylvania Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees People from Hocking County, Ohio Pittsburgh Panthers baseball players Pittsburgh Panthers football players Pittsburgh Panthers men's basketball coaches Pittsburgh Panthers men's basketball players Players of American football from Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine alumni