Francis George Welch (August 21, 1895 – June 19, 1970) 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 wi ...

player and coach,

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

coach, and college athletics administrator. He was of the first three coaches to be selected for the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its st ...

Track and Field Hall of Fame and is a member of the

Kansas Sports Hall of Fame The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame is a museum located in Wichita, dedicated to preserving the history of sports in the state of Kansas. The museum provides exhibits, archives, facilities, services, and activities to honor those individuals and te ...

. In 1960,

Emporia State University Emporia State University (Emporia State or ESU) is a public university in Emporia, Kansas, United States. Established in March 1863 as the Kansas State Normal School, Emporia State is the third-oldest public university in the state of Kansas. E ...

named the football stadium Francis G. Welch Stadium to honor his legacy.ESU Facilities -- Welch Stadium
/ref>

Playing career

Welch enrolled in Kansas State Normal School (now

) in 1914. Head football coach

Homer Woodson Hargiss Homer Woodson "Bill" Hargiss (September 1, 1887 – October 15, 1978) was an American athlete and coach. He played American football and basketball and also competed in track and field events. Additionally, Hargis coached athletics in Kansas an ...

put him at

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

where he remained until graduation four years later. He also displayed skill in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, earning 11 varsity letters before his graduation in 1918.H. W. "Bill" Hargiss
notes on Fran Welch

Coaching career

Football

Welch was the 13th head football coach for

in Emporia, Kansas and he held that position for 24 seasons, from 1928 until 1954. Emporia State, like many schools, did not play football during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. His overall coaching record at Emporia State was 115–82–15.Emporia State University
2007 Football Media Guide Welch led his team to a victory in the

Missouri-Kansas Bowl The Missouri-Kansas Bowl was a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics post-season college football bowl game played in Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and ar ...

with a 34–20 victory over Missouri State University on December 4, 1948 in Kansas City, Missouri. It was the only year the

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivi ...

was played. It was Emporia's first post-season football game. Welch (along with

Washburn University Washburn University (WU) is a public university in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,100 ...

coach

Dick Godlove Richard Milan Godlove (January 24, 1905 – September 15, 1985) was an American football and basketball coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas from 1936 to 1942 and ...

) also coached an "all-star" team made up of Kansas players to play a similar squad from

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

in the "Mo-Kan Bowl" all-star exhibition game.

Track and field

Welch coached the

teams at Emporia as well. His teams were conference champs ten times, won four NAIA championships and placed second three times in 13 years of competition. Fran developed three

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

individual champions and 13 individual NAIA champs. In 1960, Welch was selected to coach field event participants of the United States Women's Track and Field Team for the

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Personal life

Welch was awarded a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in education in 1918 from Kansas Normal, then completed requirements for a degree in agriculture at Kansas State University in

Manhattan, Kansas Manhattan is a city and county seat of Riley County, Kansas, United States, although the city extends into Pottawatomie County. It is located in northeastern Kansas at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River. As of the 2020 c ...

. He served as a

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Emporia State University Spotlight
"A soldier in two wars, a teacher for five decades" (Summer 2003) and took a leave of absence from teaching to serve in

as a captain and special services officer at

Fort Riley Fort Riley is a United States Army installation located in North Central Kansas, on the Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, between Junction City and Manhattan. The Fort Riley Military Reservation covers 101,733 acres (41,170 ha) in Ge ...

.Emporia Gazette
"F.G. (Fran) Welch Dies Following a Brief Sickness", 1970

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Fran 1895 births 1970 deaths American football quarterbacks Emporia State Hornets baseball players Emporia State Hornets athletic directors Emporia State Hornets football coaches Emporia State Hornets football players Emporia State Hornets basketball players Emporia State Hornets track and field coaches Fort Riley Centaurs football coaches Kansas State University alumni United States Army personnel of World War I United States Army personnel of World War II United States Army officers People from Lyon County, Kansas American men's basketball players