John Wilce

College coach infobox
Name = Dr. John W. Wilce


Caption =
DateOfBirth = May 12, 1888
Birthplace = Rochester, New York
DateOfDeath = May 17, 1963
Sport = American football
College =
Title =
CurrentRecord =
Awards =
Championships =
CFbDWID = 2503
Player = Trigger
Years = 1907-1909
Team = Wisconsin
Position =
FootballHOF = 1954
Coach = Trigger
CoachYears = 1911-1912 asst
1913-1928
CoachTeams = Wisconsin - asst
Ohio State - head

John Woodworth Wilce (May 12, 1888 — May 17, 1963) was a coach of American football at the Ohio State University, a physician, and a university professor.

Wilce was born in Rochester, New York. He lettered in three sports while attending the University of Wisconsin (now the University of Wisconsin-Madison), was an all-conference fullback and captain of the 1909 team. Following his graduation Wilce coached the La Crosse, Wisconsin, High School football team, then became both an assistant football coach and assistant professor of physical education at Wisconsin.

In 1913 Ohio State began play in the Western Conference (later the Big Ten Conference) and hired Wilce as its full-time head coach. He won Ohio State's first conference championship in 1916 with a 7-0 record, and repeated in 1917 (8-0-1), and in 1920 (7-1), a year which also saw Ohio State's first invitation to the Rose Bowl.

Wilce coached Ohio State football for sixteen seasons, the second longest tenure in Buckeye history after Woody Hayes, with an overall record of 78 wins, 33 losses, and 9 ties. In 1919 he received his medical degree and he retired from football after the 1928 season to practice medicine. Dr. Wilce completed postgraduate training in cardiology at University of Edinburgh in the 1930s and was a professor of preventive medicine at the Ohio State College of Medicine, specializing in research and treatment of heart diseases, and also served as Director of Student Health Services from 1934 to 1958. The John W. Wilce Student Health Center, built in 1969, is named for Dr. Wilce.

Wilce's "combination of medicine and football," and a sense of propriety that reflected his English heritage and led him to try to reform the speech of his players on and off the field, led him to coin the phrase "intestinal fortitude." Haber (1955) records the story of the coinage—the idea first coming to Dr. Wilce on the way to the lecture he was about to present on anatomy and physiology at Ohio State in 1916, his first use of the phrase in public (in a lecture to his team), and how he began to hear the phrase used by others.

In 1954 Dr. Wilce was selected for enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame and was elected a member of the Ohio State Varsity O Hall of Fame in 1977. His academic honors include the Ohio State Distinguished Service Award in 1956. He died of complications of cardiovascular disease on May 17, 1963, in the Columbus suburb of Westerville, Ohio.

Of his departure from coaching he was quoted: "Football was becoming too much of a business. The game was being taken away from the boys. I was a faculty-type coach who believed educational aspects were more important than winning games."

Dr. Wilce was survived by his wife, Minerva Connor Wilce, sons Jay and Jim (James M.) Wilce (1922-1988), and daughters Roseanne Wilce Pearcy and Dorothy Wilce Krause, along with many grandchildren, amongst whom are the nationally known sports and outdoors photographer Anne Krause (1952-2006, http://www.denverpost.com/obituaries/ci_4003876) and Jim (James M.) Wilce, Jr., a linguistic anthropologist (see linguistic anthropology) at Northern Arizona University.

ources

*Haber, Tom Burns; "The Origin of 'Intestinal Fortitude.' American Speech 30(3):235-237.
*Park, Jack; "The Official OHIO STATE Football Encyclopedia" (2002), Sports Publishing L.L.C., ISBN 1-58261-006-1
* [http://www.collegefootball.org/famersearch.php?id=10041 College Football Hall of Fame]
* [http://shc.osu.edu/aboutus.asp Wilce Student Health Center]
* [http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ James M. Wilce, Jr.]

Links