Frederick Mortimer "Cap" Irish (May 16, 1870 – April 12, 1941) 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 ...

coach, college athletics administrator, and science instructor. He served as the first head football coach at the Territorial Normal School, renamed Tempe Normal School in 1903 and now known as Arizona State University, coaching from 1897 to 1906 and compiling a record of 12–8. Territorial Normal did not field a football team in 1898 or 1901. Irish was also the first

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches an ...

at Territorial/Tempe Normal, serving from 1896 to 1913. In addition, he taught science at the school.

Irish Field Irish Field served as the home to the Tempe Normal football team from 1927 to 1935 before being replaced by Goodwin Stadium in 1936. History Tempe Normal gained accreditation as a 4-year institute in 1925. It was quickly decided the football ...

one of the original homes of Arizona State Football was also named after the coach and administrator. Irish graduated from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...

in 1895 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He taught in his hometown of

Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. At the time of the 2020 census, the population of Dubuque was 59,667. The city lies at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a r ...

, before moving to Arizona. Irish died at a hospital in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

, on April 12, 1941. Irish Hall, a residence hall at Arizona State University, is named for him.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Irish, Frederick M. 1870 births 1941 deaths 19th-century American educators 20th-century American educators Arizona State Sun Devils athletic directors Arizona State Sun Devils football coaches Arizona State University faculty University of Iowa alumni Sportspeople from Dubuque, Iowa Coaches of American football from Iowa