Irwin Uteritz
American football and baseball player and coach (1899-1963)
Irwin Charles "Utz" Uteritz (July 4, 1899 – December 14, 1963) was an American athlete and coach. He played American football and baseball for the University of Michigan from 1921 to 1923. At 140 pounds, he was one of the lightest quarterbacks ever to start for a major college program. Despite his size, Michigan football coach Fielding H. Yost called him "the best field general I ever had."
Uteritz led Michigan to back-to-back undefeated seasons and a national championship in 1923. He also played three years of baseball for Michigan at second base and shortstop, hit above .300 and was elected as captain of the 1923 baseball team. Uteritz later served as a football and baseball coach at Northwestern University (1924–1925), the University of Wisconsin (1925–1935), the University of California (1935–1947), and Washington University in St. Louis (1947–1963).
Playing career
Football
A native of Oak Park, Illinois, Uteritz was the quarterback for the Oak Park and River Forest High School football team coached by Glenn Thistlethwaite, who later became the head football coach at Northwestern. In 1920, Uteritz enrolled at the University of Michigan where he played quarterback from 1921 to 1923, leading the Wolverines to back-to-back undefeated football seasons in 1922 and 1923. Over the three years of his football career at Michigan, the Wolverines never lost a football game in which Uteritz played.
“Irwin Uteritz” enters the record as american football and baseball player and coach (1899-1963). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Irwin, Uteritz and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6075150. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1963, 1921 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Irwin Uteritz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.