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William F. Logan

Hall of Fame

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Inducted 1969

College

Johns Hopkins University

William Francis Logan was born in 1905, in Texas, Maryland, the second of three boys. Shortly afterwards his family moved to nearby Cockeysville. Bill graduated from Towson High School in 1923, and while there, he excelled in basketball and soccer. The following year he entered Mount Saint Mary's (Md.) College before transferring to Johns Hopkins University at the beginning of his junior year.

At that time the University had neither basketball nor baseball at its campus. The absence of these sports, plus a strong love of athletics spurred Bill to buy his first lacrosse stick and try out for the Hopkins team. As a member of the sub squad, Bill caught the eye of Norman Robinson, star player and later captain of the 1927 squad. Encouraged by Robinson, Bill learned the fundamentals of stick handling and at the beginning of the 1927 season, a week before the opening game, was placed on the first team as a replacement for an injured player.

Teaming with Robinson in his first intercollegiate game, Bill registered nine goals against the University of Virginia and went on to become one of the top scorers in the country. He was selected as an All-American in 1927. Logan graduated from Hopkins in 1927 and, under the existing rules, returned as a graduate student to play another season. That year, Hopkins won the national playoffs and the right to represent the United States at the 1928 Olympics, played in Amsterdam. That same year "Father Bill" Schmeisser selected him to the All-Time Johns Hopkins team. 

Logan's coaching career was launched in 1929 when he coached the high school varsity at Baltimore City College. In the fall of 1930, he was invited to come to Princeton as frosh coach in soccer and lacrosse. In 1936, he was appointed head coach of soccer and lacrosse and director of intramural athletics at Princeton. In 1940, he was appointed supervisor of physical education. In connection with this appointment he was relieved of his coaching responsibilities in soccer but continued as head coach of lacrosse through the spring of 1944. During the 1942-43 and 1943-44 seasons, he served as head coach of basketball also.

Under Bill's tutelage Princeton's lacrosse teams ranked every year among the top four teams in the country. In 1937, they were ranked number one jointly with the University of Maryland and in 1942 they were declared Intercollegiate Champions. Each year while Bill coached lacrosse at Princeton at least one or two members of the squad were named to the All-American team. He was a member of the three-coach committee that directed the North team in the nation's first North-South lacrosse classic in 1940 and was head coach of the North team the following year.

In 1945, Bill returned to Johns Hopkins as director of admissions. On the side, he assisted in the coaching of freshmen and varsity lacrosse. He was instrumental in founding the United States Lacrosse Coaches Association and served as secretary and later as president. He was a member of the USILA committee that experimented with the 10-man game prior to its adoption.

In 1959, Bill resigned from Hopkins to become community manager of Sherwood Forest, a unique family-club community near Annapolis. In 1966, he returned to the University as the academic advisor and counselor of freshmen and also assisted with frosh lacrosse.

Bill Logan passed away in 1989.