15 Facts About Hec Edmundson

Clarence Sinclair "Hec" Edmundson was an American basketball and track coach.

Hec Edmundson coached the track teams and served on the NCAA Basketball Committee from 1941 to 1946.

One of the first great athletes at the fledgling University of Idaho in Moscow, Hec Edmundson competed in track for his hometown university and launched the team onto the national stage when he and two other athletes traveled to the Lewis and Clark Exposition Games against the top schools in the Northwest.

In 1908, Hec Edmundson traveled to Stanford for the western US Olympic trials, where he won the 800 meters and finished second in the 400 meters, but did not make the Olympic team.

Hec Edmundson later held the title of top half-miler in the country through 1912.

Hec Edmundson became the first Idahoan to compete in the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912.

Hec Edmundson finished seventh in the 800 meters and sixth in the 400 meters.

Hec Edmundson attended the UI prep school and was a charter member of the new chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity as an undergraduate.

Hec Edmundson earned a bachelor's degree in agriculture from Idaho in 1910, and then taught and coached at the high school level, one year each at Coeur d'Alene and Broadway High School in Seattle.

Hec Edmundson returned to Moscow to coach the UI track team in 1913.

Hec Edmundson coached basketball through March 1947 and continued as track coach for another seven years.

In March 1999, "Hec Edmundson Ed" underwent a major interior renovation for 19 months and re-opened in November.

Hec Edmundson is buried next to his wife Mary Zona Schultz, son James, and infant child.

Hec Edmundson was posthumously inducted into the Big W Club, the UW athletics hall of fame, in the first class of 1979.

Hec Edmundson's parents were Thomas Sinclair Hec Edmundson and Emma Jeannette Rowley, both buried in Moscow.