18 Facts About Tom Lieb

Thomas John Lieb was an American Olympic track and field athlete, an All-American college football player and a multi-sport collegiate coach.

Tom Lieb was a Minnesota native and an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, where he played college football.

Tom Lieb was best known as the head coach of the Loyola Marymount University and University of Florida football teams.

In high school, Tom Lieb excelled at baseball, football, ice hockey, and track and field.

Tom Lieb attended the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where he lettered in all four sports and twice received All-American football honors.

Tom Lieb was a two-time National Collegiate Athletics Association national collegiate champion in the discus in 1922 and 1923, and the Amateur Athletic Union national open champion in 1923 and 1924.

Tom Lieb is widely credited with introducing the modern spin delivery that is still used today.

At the 1924 Summer Olympics held in Paris, France, Tom Lieb competed for the United States in the discus throw and won the bronze medal, but did not equal the distance of his qualifying throw.

Several weeks after the Olympics ended, Tom Lieb broke the discus world record with a throw of 47.61 meters.

In 1929, Tom Lieb returned to Notre Dame as the assistant football coach, and was instrumental in directing the Irish to a national championship as Knute Rockne spent most of the season recovering from complications due to thrombophlebitis, a crippling infection of Rockne's leg.

Tom Lieb's coaching success was recognized when he was offered the head coaching position at Loyola University in Los Angeles, California, where he remained from 1930 to 1938.

Tom Lieb started Loyola's ice hockey program as an off-season conditioning program for his football players, but quickly built the team into a powerhouse with an annual rivalry with the University of Southern California.

Tom Lieb quit his coaching job at Loyola during his wife's illness in 1939, and then decided to leave California after she died.

In 1940, Tom Lieb succeeded Josh Cody as the head football coach at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, with high expectations based on his prior successes with Notre Dame and Loyola.

Tom Lieb was unable to duplicate the same level of success with the Gators that he had at Notre Dame and Loyola.

When Tom Lieb retired in 1951, he returned to Los Angeles, where he became a public speaker.

Tom Lieb died of an apparent heart attack in 1962 at age 62.

Tom Lieb was elected to the Loyola Marymount Hall of Fame posthumously in 1987.