1. Henry Clifford "Doc" Carlson was an American basketball coach and football player.
10 Facts About Doc Carlson
1. 2.
Doc Carlson is a Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee as the men's college basketball coach of his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, from 1922 to 1953.
3.
Doc Carlson played high school football, basketball, and baseball at Bellefonte Academy in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.
4.
Doc Carlson 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.
5.
Doc Carlson was famous for his Figure 8 offense, an innovation that many coaches copied.
6.
In 1931 Doc Carlson became the first Eastern coach to take a collegiate team westward, going on the road to beat the University of Kansas, the University of Colorado, Stanford, and the University of Southern California.
7.
Legend has it that Doc Carlson offered Stan Musial a basketball scholarship to Pitt, but Musial only wanted to play baseball, and had secretly signed a contract with the St Louis Cardinals' Monessen, Pennsylvania, ball club of the Class D Pennsylvania State League Association.
8.
Doc Carlson became Pitt's director of student health services in 1932 and held that position until his retirement in 1953.
9.
Doc Carlson died November 1,1964, at his home in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
10.
Doc Carlson was inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame in 1949, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 1959, and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in its inaugural class of 2006.