Cleve Abbott

Updated: 10/29/2009 03:25:23 (ET)
By SDSU Sports Info

Courtesy: South Dakota State University
http://www.gojacks.com/

Graduated: 1916
Inducted: 1968
The second inductee to the Hall of Fame was a 1916 graduate who starred in track, football, baseball and basketball. Cleve Abbott, who graduated from Watertown High School, won 14 varsity awards at South Dakota State. After graduation from South Dakota State, Abbott became one of the most respected coaches and athletic directors in the South.

Hired by Booker T. Washington as an agricultural chemist and coach at Tuskegee Institute, he later became director of the Department of Physical Education and Athletics at Tuskegee. Abbott’s college grid teams won numerous championships and his women’s track teams consistently won national AAU titles from 1937 through 1950. Athletes from his women’s teams represented the United States in the London and Helsinki Olympics and the Pan-American games in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. Abbott died in 1955.