Conrad Eugene Van Gent (December 23, 1889 – June 12, 1949) 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 ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player and coach. He served as the head football at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1916, at the University Farm, now the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

, in 1920, and 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 consider ...

in 1921, compiling a career

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

record of 14–8–3. Van Gent was also the head basketball coach at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

(1914–1916), Texas (1916–1917), and Stanford (1921–1922), tallying a career

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

mark of 42–19. Van Gent played football and basketball, and ran

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. He was selected to the College Basketball All-American team in 1914.

Coaching career

During his two seasons as basketball head coach at the

, from 1914 to 1916, Van Gent led to the Tigers to a 21–9 overall record. The

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

hired Van Gent as both football and basketball head coach in 1916. He coached for one season in each sport before joining the military to fight in the

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 ...

. In the 1916 college football season, Van Gent directed Texas to a 7–2 overall record in football and a 6–1 record in

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma an ...

play. As men's basketball head coach for the 1916–17 season, he directed the Longhorns to a 13–3 overall record (7–1 in conference play) and their third consecutive

championship. In 1921, Van Gent coached the

Stanford Cardinal football The Stanford Cardinal football program represents Stanford University in college football at the NCAA Division I FBS level and is a member of the Pac-12 Conference's North Division. The team is known as the Stanford Cardinal, Cardinal, adopted pri ...

team, compiling a 4–2–2 record. Van Gent also coached Stanford's basketball team in 1921–22. He fell ill with

encephalitis lethargica Encephalitis lethargica is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleeping sickness" or "sleepy sickness" (distinct from tsetse fly-transmitted sleeping sickness), it was first described in 1917 by neurologist Constantin von Economo a ...

in December 1922 and was hospitalized in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Head coaching record

Football

Basketball

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Van Gent, Eugene 1889 births 1949 deaths American men's basketball players Missouri Tigers men's basketball coaches Stanford Cardinal men's basketball coaches Stanford Cardinal football coaches Texas Longhorns football coaches Texas Longhorns men's basketball coaches UC Davis Aggies football coaches Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball players Wisconsin Badgers football players College men's track and field athletes in the United States All-American college men's basketball players University of Missouri faculty People from Ottumwa, Iowa Coaches of American football from Iowa Players of American football from Iowa Basketball coaches from Iowa Basketball players from Iowa Track and field athletes from Iowa