Forest "Evy" Evashevski was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator.
51 Facts About Forest Evashevski
2.
Forest Evashevski played college football at the University of Michigan from 1938 to 1940 and with the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks in 1942.
3.
Forest Evashevski served as Iowa's athletic director from 1960 to 1970, and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2000.
4.
The school's varsity football coaches felt that Forest Evashevski was too small at just 128 pounds.
5.
Forest Evashevski led his intramural team to an upset of the varsity squad, and the coaches let him join the team.
6.
Forest Evashevski started at tackle and linebacker as a 16-year-old Northwestern High School senior; he was allowed to skip a few grades in grade school to help him maintain interest academically.
7.
Forest Evashevski was knocked out cold and spent the next several months in the hospital.
8.
In Crisler's single-wing system, the quarterback position required mostly calling signals and blocking for the running back, and Forest Evashevski had the blocking skills and intelligence necessary to become a star.
9.
Forest Evashevski started and was an all-Big Ten Conference performer three straight seasons.
10.
Forest Evashevski played from 1938 to 1940 and paved the way for halfback Tom Harmon, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1940.
11.
Forest Evashevski feared a letdown, so he ordered his team to consider the game scoreless.
12.
Forest Evashevski spoke up and said he would not play unless he could be a leopard.
13.
Forest Evashevski was named to the 1939 College Football All Polish-American Team.
14.
Forest Evashevski was the baseball catcher, the senior class president, and an honor society member.
15.
Forest Evashevski graduated with a sociology major and a psychology minor.
16.
Forest Evashevski wanted to take labor law at the University of Michigan Law School, but his plans were interrupted with the outbreak of World War II and the Americans entering the War.
17.
Forest Evashevski then enrolled at the Iowa Naval Pre-Flight School in Iowa City, teaching the students hand-to-hand combat and playing for the Pre-Flight Seahawks in 1942.
18.
When he returned from the military, Forest Evashevski went back to Ann Arbor to try to enroll at Michigan's law school.
19.
Forest Evashevski followed Munn to Michigan State University one year later and served as his assistant coach there from 1947 to 1949.
20.
In 1950, Forest Evashevski accepted a head coaching job out west in the Pacific Coast Conference at Washington State College in Pullman.
21.
Forest Evashevski nearly took the head coaching job at Indiana University, but Fritz Crisler urged him to consider Iowa.
22.
Forest Evashevski felt that it would be easier to attain statewide support at Iowa than in Indiana, where Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame shared the spotlight.
23.
Forest Evashevski was familiar with Iowa City from his stint with the Naval Pre-Flight School.
24.
Iowa's first two opponents in 1952 were Pittsburgh and Indiana, and Iowa lost to both, but Forest Evashevski knew the Hawkeye program could be resurrected.
25.
Iowa was scheduled to play Ohio State for homecoming, and Forest Evashevski's Hawks were three-touchdown underdogs.
26.
Forest Evashevski strongly believed that the team had to be instilled with a fighting attitude, and that the Big Ten needed to be made aware of Iowa's presence in the league.
27.
Forest Evashevski stormed on to the field to protest a call, which fired up the Iowa crowd.
28.
Rather than a pregame speech, Forest Evashevski used a pregame altercation to fire up his Hawkeye team.
29.
Forest Evashevski was the last man off the bus and, as he walked over to the gate, he was scolded by the gatekeeper.
30.
Forest Evashevski, who had his hand on the team's passes and was about to produce them, saw an opportunity.
31.
Forest Evashevski shoved the passes back into his pocket and engaged in a verbal battle with the gatekeeper, as his cold and angry Hawkeye team watched.
32.
Forest Evashevski calmly explained that a tie did not hurt Iowa's Big Ten title chances, while it all but ended Michigan's.
33.
Brechler and Forest Evashevski were both reportedly very good at their respective jobs, but relations between the two men quickly deteriorated.
34.
Forest Evashevski called the conflict "[a] complete destruction of confidence in each other".
35.
Forest Evashevski had repeatedly mentioned that he did not intend to grow old in coaching.
36.
Forest Evashevski chose to become Iowa's athletic director and promised to appoint a new football coach after the 1960 season.
37.
Forest Evashevski's teams won three Big Ten titles and two Rose Bowls, and finished in the top ten of the final AP Poll five times.
38.
Forest Evashevski hired his assistant coach, Jerry Burns, to replace him as head football coach.
39.
Forest Evashevski cut down on traveling expenses for recruiting, phone calls, entertainment of prospective recruits, you name it.
40.
However, despite his public statements, rumors swirled that Forest Evashevski would appoint himself to succeed Burns.
41.
Forest Evashevski hired Ray Nagel from the University of Utah, although Nagel's record at Utah was not stellar.
42.
Friction between Nagel and Forest Evashevski began to take public effect in January 1970 when Nagel dismissed offensive line coach Gary Grouwinkel for "disloyalty", which Grouwinkel later revealed was his allegiance to Forest Evashevski instead of Nagel.
43.
About two weeks later, Lawrence's roommate, a non-athlete, submitted to the Iowa Board of Athletics a written statement charging Forest Evashevski with participating in a rebellion aimed at getting Nagel fired and that would allow Forest Evashevski to succeed him as head football coach.
44.
Forest Evashevski vehemently denied the charges, and Iowa's athletic board took no action.
45.
Nagel was rehired a few days later, but Forest Evashevski was replaced as athletic director at Iowa by Bump Elliott.
46.
The news headlines reported Forest Evashevski as resigning and Nagel as being fired.
47.
Forest Evashevski was only 42 when he retired from coaching and just 52 when he was fired as Iowa's athletic director.
48.
Forest Evashevski briefly worked as a color analyst on ABC's college football coverage before moving back to northern Michigan.
49.
Forest Evashevski was survived by his wife Ruth, seven children, 14 grandchildren, and five great grandchildren.
50.
Forest Evashevski's youngest daughter, Kassie, is a literary agent in Los Angeles.
51.
Forest Evashevski was a bridge player, appearing on the television program Championship Bridge with Charles Goren.