John C. "Fuzzy" Evans (February 13, 1908 – July 22, 1983) was an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player and coach. He served as the head basketball coach at the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, commonly referred to as the University of Vermont (UVM), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont, United States. Foun ...

from 1940 to 1965. His 23 years at the helm of the

Vermont Catamounts men's basketball The Vermont Catamounts men's basketball team is the men's basketball team that represents the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. The school's team currently competes in the America East Conference and plays its home games at Patrick G ...

program makes him the longest tenured basketball coach in school history, while his 260 career wins rank second all-time at Vermont. Evans was also the head football coach at Vermont from 1940 to 1951.

Playing career

Evans played football and basketball at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. His roommate at Illinois was

James Reston James "Scotty" Barrett Reston (November 3, 1909 – December 6, 1995) was an American journalist whose career spanned the mid-1930s to the early 1990s. He was associated for many years with ''The New York Times.'' Early life and educati ...

, later a journalist for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. Both men were members of

Sigma Pi Sigma Pi () is a collegiate fraternity in North America. As of 2021, it had more than 5,000 undergraduate members and over 118,000 alumni. The fraternity is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded on February 26, 1897, at Vincennes Uni ...

fraternity.

Coaching career

Evans arrived at Vermont for the 1940–41 season. In his first three years on the job Evans compiled a 29–16 record before the program went on hiatus due to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Two years after the war was over, Vermont basketball enjoyed its best-ever season, winning the first-ever

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the a ...

men's basketball regular season title posting a school-record 19–3 mark, led by future UVM Hall of Famers Larry Killick and Bob Jake. The 19 wins represented the most victories by any Catamount basketball team until 2002. Killick and Jake were later drafted by the Baltimore Bullets in the

1947 BAA Draft The 1947 BAA draft was the first ever draft of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which later merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to become the National Basketball Association (NBA). The fledgling BAA held this draft as a ...

. While at Vermont, Evans led the Catamounts to eight consecutive Vermont state titles (games between local state colleges and universities), including 30 straight victories at one stretch. During his tenure, Evans coached future basketball coaches

Rollie Massimino Roland Vincent Massimino (November 13, 1934 – August 30, 2017) was an American basketball coach. He served as the head men's basketball coach at Stony Brook University (1969–1971), Villanova University (1973–1992), the University of Nevada, ...

('56) and

Herb Brown Herbert Brown (born March 14, 1936) is an American basketball coach and the brother of Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown. He is the former head coach of the Detroit Pistons (1976–78). Career Brown succeeded Ray Scott when he was promoted from ...

('57). Evans was also a teacher at UVM. He was inducted to the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame in 1973.

Head coaching record

Football

Basketball

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, John C. 1908 births 1983 deaths American men's basketball coaches American football halfbacks Illinois Fighting Illini football players Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball players Vermont Catamounts football coaches Vermont Catamounts men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Sigma Pi members