Bump Elliott

Bump Elliott

Chalmers W. "Bump" Elliott (born January 30, 1925) is a former American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He played halfback at Purdue University (1943–1944) and the University of Michigan (1946–1947). Elliott grew up in Bloomington, Illinois, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a senior in high school and was assigned to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Purdue University. He received varsity letters in football, baseball, and basketball at Purdue, before being called into active duty in late 1944, serving with the Marines in China.

After being discharged from the military, he enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1946 and joined the football team for whom his brother Pete Elliott played quarterback. In 1947, he played for an undefeated and untied Michigan football team known as the "Mad Magicians", led the Big Nine Conference in scoring, won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the Conference, and was selected as an All-American by the American Football Coaches Association.

After graduating from Michigan in 1948, Elliott spent ten years as an assistant football coach at Oregon State, Iowa, and Michigan. He was appointed as Michigan's head football coach in 1959 and held that position until 1968, leading the team to a Big Ten Conference championship and Rose Bowl victory in the 1964 season. For a period of 21 years, from 1970 to 1991, he was the athletic director at the University of Iowa. During his tenure as athletic director, he hired coaches Dan Gable, Hayden Fry, Lute Olson, C. Vivian Stringer, and Dr. Tom Davis, and the Iowa Hawkeyes won 41 Big Ten Conference championships and 11 NCAA titles. In 1989, Elliott was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.