Northwestern Oklahoma State University

Francis S. “Frank” Wyatt will be inducted posthumously; he died in 1926 at the age of 56. He is a native of Crawford County, Mo., and came to Oklahoma in 1894 to stake a claim in Dewey County. He served as superintendent of schools at Okeene for four years and then from 1898-99 was principal of the city schools at Newton, Kan. In 1903 he returned to Okeene as principal and served until 1906 when he took a position at Northwestern as a history instructor. At Northwestern, Wyatt established the first organized physical education program and was Northwestern’s first salaried coach. Probably his greatest success came in 1916 when he coached the famous “65-inch” Ranger basketball team that won the state championship, toured the West (winning 80 percent of its games) and played in the national basketball tournament in Chicago. Wyatt was Northwestern’s first athletic director and coached baseball, track and football in addition to basketball. Wyatt was a member of the National Guard and served on active duty in Europe at the end of World War I. He also served as the first commander of the 45^th Division Signal Company which was organized in Alva in 1923.