Frederick Bushnell "Jack" Ryder

[BrutusBobcat]

I've been doing some Wiki reading on the history of Ohio State football coaches and thought that it would be interesting to have threads for some of them. There are some interesting stories and men who have coached and helped build the Buckeye legacy.

Ryder was Ohio State's first paid head coach (check out his salary!), a Spanish American war veteran and the man who gave the University of Cincinnati the nickname "Bearcats", while working as a sportswriter for the Cincy Enquirer:

In 1919, Ryder helped give the nickname to the University of Cincinnati sports teams, the Bearcats. Cincinnati had five years earlier fielded a star fullback named Leonard K. "Teddy" Baehr. In a 1914 game against the University of Kentucky Wildcats, the Cincinnati fans cheered, "They may be Wildcats, but we have a Baehr-cat on our side." In 1919, Ryder revived the nickname and attributed it to the entire team. The name stuck and was soon adopted by the University

Interesting that going from coaching to the media is a career path that's as old as football.

Frederick Bushnell "Jack" Ryder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He also won more games than any other OSU coach in the 19th century (22) and was the first OSU coach to have a winning season:

Ryder led Ohio State to its first winning season. He introduced the concepts of closed practice and a training table. He also introduced a formation known as the Ryder Wedge, which was a variation of a wedge formation he had used at Williams College.