Hall of Fame
Hometown: Nashua, Iowa
Gene Carson, Class of 1937, put together an outstanding sports record as an athlete, coach, and official before building a successful career in business. He was halfback on the Coe football teams of 1934 through 1936, teams which won conference championships in 1934 and 1936. Coe lost only one conference game in that three-year span. Mr. Carson was named to the All-Conference and All-State teams. The other halfback on the All-State team was the legendary Ozzie Simmons of Iowa.
Gene Carson was a member of the Coe track team which won championships in 1935 and 1936 and was second in 1937 by only three points. A track meet was a busy day for Mr. Carson. He would run the sprints, pole vault, broad jump, run the low hurdles and run on the relay teams. One bright memory for him was the day at the Drake Relays in 1936 when he placed 5th in the broad jump, won that day by the great Jesse Owens with a world record leap.
Between graduation from Coe and the beginning of World War II Gene Carson was a coach of football, basketball, and track at Nashua and Winterset high schools in Iowa. In the military he was a Navy specialist in athletics and at Pensacola he both managed and played shortstop on a baseball team that included major league manager Herman Franks as the catcher.
From 1945 through 1952 Gene Carson was an active high school and college football and basketball official. He refereed the first game played at Kingston Stadium between the four city high schools on the field that was the Kohawks' home ground for awhile.
