Indiana State University Athletics

Lotus D. Coffman was a student-athlete at Indiana Normal School (later Indiana State University) from 1893 through 1896 and was a member of the football team, serving as the quarterback and team captain in 1896.
 
Coffman graduated from Salem (Ind.,) High School in 1892 and returned to Salem after graduating from Indiana State Normal School. He served as principal of Salem schools (1900-1903) and Superintendent of Salem Schools (1903-1906) before moving on to be Superintendent of Connersville School (1906-1908). Coffman was the director of training at Charleston (Ill.) Normal School (1908-1912) before being hired by the University of Illinois to create a College of Education and served as that college’s first dean (1912-1915). He was hired as the Dean of the College of Education at the University of Minnesota in 1915 and was named the fifth president of the University in 1920, a position he held until his death on September 22, 1938. Coffman Memorial Union, the main student center, is named in his memory.
 
Coffman earned a Bachelor of Arts (1906) and a Masters of Arts (1910) from Indiana University, his Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia, N.Y., in 1911. He also received a Doctor of Laws degree from Indiana University and Carleton College in 1922, Columbia University in 1929, and the University of Michigan in 1931. He received a Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Denver in 1930 and a Doctor of Science in education from George Washington University in 1930.
 
He was instrumental in the recruitment of Bernie Bierman as the Minnesota Golden Gophers football coach. Bierman won three National Championships and six Big Ten titles between 1932 and 1941.

• Quarterback and Captain of Indiana State Normal School’s Football Team (1896) 

• High School Football Coach 

• President University of Minnesota (1920-1938) 

• Recruited and hired Coach Bernie Bierman at University of Minnesota 

• Inducted into Hall of Fame February 28, 2004