Fielding Yost

• Nebraska Head Coach, 1898
• Nebraska Record: 8-3 (.727)
• Overall Record: 190-34-11 (.881)
• College Football Hall of Fame Coach (1951)
• Nebraska Football Hall of Fame Coach (1971)

One of six Nebraska coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame, Fielding H. Yost joined Dana X. Bible as former NU coaches in the first Hall of Fame induction class in 1951, along with former Husker All-American Ed Weir.

Nebraska served as the second stop in Yost's Hall of Fame career, as he came to Lincoln after one season as the head coach at Ohio Wesleyan in 1897, after graduating from Lafayette earlier in the year. Yost's only NU team finished with an 8-3 record, the first eight-win season ever by a Nebraska team. In Yost's first game as a coach, he led NU to a 76-0 win over Hastings. His team added wins over Iowa State, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, in Nebraska's first-ever meeting with the Buffaloes.

His team added an impressive 11-10 road victory over the Denver Athletic Club, a team described as "a gang of pros."

Yost left Nebraska after one season to become the head coach at Kansas, leading the Jayhawks to a perfect 10-0 record in his only season in Lawrence in 1899.

He also spent the 1900 season as the head coach at Stanford, where he posted a 3-3-1 record, before taking over the program at Michigan and leading the Wolverines to one of the most successful stretches in college football history.

He guided Michigan to four consecutive mythical national championships as head football coach in his first four years in Ann Arbor from 1901 to 1904. Overall, he coached the Wolverines for 25 seasons from 1901 to 1923 and again in 1925 and 1926. He led Michigan to eight undefeated seasons, and they claimed six mythical national titles during his tenure.

In his first season as the Wolverines' head coach, Yost led Michigan to an 11-0-0 record that included a 49-0 victory over his former Stanford club in the first-ever Rose Bowl game on Jan. 1, 1902. The Wolverines were unbeaten and unscored upon that season to claim a mythical national title. Over the next four years, Michigan continued to dominate. In his first five years as the head coach of the Maize and Blue, Michigan rolled to a 55-1-1 record with its only blemishes coming in a 6-6 tie with Minnesota in 1903 and a 2-0 loss to Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago team in 1905. The Wolverines outscored their opponents in those five seasons, 2,821-42.

In 25 years as Michigan's head coach, Yost amassed a 165-29-10 record. In 1921, he added the duties of athletic director at Michigan, a position he held until 1942. During his term as athletic director, Yost's building projects included Michigan Stadium and Yost Fieldhouse, which is now known as Yost Ice Arena.

He was inducted with the inaugural class of the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., in 1951. In 28 seasons as a head coach, Yost's teams never had a losing record and he finished his career with a 190-34-11 (.881) overall record.

One of the great players coached by Yost at Michigan included future Nebraska football and track coach Henry Schulte, who was an All-Big Ten guard/center and graduated from Michigan in 1907. Schulte coached the NU football team in 1919 and 1920, while leading the NU track team to 15 conference titles in 20 years as head coach.

Nebraska Coach William C. "King" Cole (1907-10) also had a connection with Yost at Michigan, as he served as an assistant coach for the Wolverines in 1904, before coming to Lincoln a few years later.

Yost coached one game against Nebraska, handing Coach Walter C. "Bummy" Booth's powerful Husker club a 31-0 loss on Oct. 21, 1905, in Ann Arbor. That NU team finished with an 8-2 record in Booth's final season with the only other loss coming at Minnesota.

Along with being one of the first-ever full-time, professional collegiate coaches, Yost was a lawyer, author and business man.

Yost was born in Fairview, W.Va., on April 30, 1871, and passed away in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Aug. 20, 1946.