SPORTS LEGEND: A tremendously successful college athlete eschewed professional football because his religion would not allow him to work on Sundays.

Bennie Oosterbaan was a legendary football player at the University of Michigan during the 1920s. Heck, he was just a flat-out legendary players of SPORTS at the University of Michigan during the 1920s!

As a receiver and a defensive end for Michigan, Osterbaan was an All-American all three years he played for Michigan (1925-1927)

However, he was also a talented BASKETBALL player, as well (he was a forward)! He was an All-American in basketball for two years, 1927 and 1928. He led the NCAA in scoring in 1928.

If THAT wasn’t enough, he was ALSO All-Big Ten in baseball in 1928, when he led the Big Ten in batting (be played first base and pitched a little)!

So Bennie Oosterbaan was quite an athlete. He could have easily played professional football.

Yet, upon his graduation, he did not seek out a professional career.

And the reason was as simple as when professional football games are played.

You see, Oosterbaan was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and they forbade their members to work on Sundays.

So Oosterbaan put his religious convictions ahead of a career playing sports.

Instead, Oosterbaan stayed at Michigan (where they play on Saturdays) as an assistant coach for both the football and the basketball teams beginning in the 1928-29 school year. He became the head basketball coach in 1938 and held the position until 1946. In 1948, after twenty years as an assistant coach, he finally became the head coach upon the retirement of Fritz Crisler.

In his first year as head coach, Michigan’s football team won the national championship (he won Head Coach of the Year honors).

Oosterbaan was a kind, level-headed man, and the pressures of coaching for such a big program eventually wore at him and he walked away from one of the prominent coaching gigs in college football in 1958, continuing his tradition of putting his beliefs and ideals ahead of his career.

Upon his stepping down, he then became Michigan’s director of athletic alumni relations, where he stayed until his retirement in 1972, having spent his entire adult life connected to Michigan.

STATUS: True

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com