Weeb Eubank

Distinguished Alumnus Wilbur “Weeb” Ewbank, Class of 1924

Weeb Ewbank excelled in sports while in school. Born in Richmond, he played on the high school football team, captained the basketball team, played on the baseball team, and even played drums in the national award-winning orchestra.

He worked for his father driving a horse-drawn cart for the grocery store. Weeb never coached at Richmond but became world-renowned with his twenty-year professional football coaching career.

 He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, playing both football and basketball in college and graduated in 1928, beginning his teaching and coaching career at Van Wert High School, in Van Wert, Ohio. He also was a high school football coach at McGuffey High School in Oxford, Ohio, before being named basketball coach at Miami University in 1939. Ewbank later became a very successful football coach at Miami University.

He joined the navy in World War II and was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training  Station near Chicago, Illinois. After the war,  he coached football at Washington University in St. Louis.

In 1954 at age forty-seven, he became the head coach of the NFL’s Baltimore Colts. His young quarterback, Johnny Unitas, helped the Colts win the NFL championship in both 1958 and 1959. After some losing seasons with the Colts, Ewbank was fired and replaced with a younger coach.  Weeb then became the coach of a new team, the New York Jets, in 1963. His team signed Joe Namath in 1965 and won the 1968 AFL championship, making Ewbank the only coach to win a title in both the NFL and AFL.

Super Bowl III was played at the Orange Bowl on January 12, 1969. Ewbank’s former NFL Colts played against his current team, the New York Jets. The 13-1 Colts were heavily favored against the Jets, but Ewbank’s Jets held the Colts scoreless until the end of the fourth quarter, winning the game 16-7. This was the first time that the AFL had won a championship.

Weeb Ewbank is remembered for his gentle coaching style and his “shotgun” offense. He wrote his biography, Football Greats, and last returned to Richmond in 1991 for a sports banquet.

Weeb Ewbank was married to classmate Lucy Massey Ewbank and died in 1998 at age ninety-one, living his last years in Oxford, Ohio. Ewbank and Lucy had three daughters, Luanne, Nancy, and Jan.  He was selected as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  380 Hub Etchison Parkway, Richmond, IN 47374

 (765) 973-3338