University of Minnesota Athletics
Jim Kelly - M Club Hall of Fame
Jim Kelly
Track & Field Coach: 1937-63
Cross Country Coach: 1938-62
HOF Class of 2006
Jim Kelly guided the Gopher men’s track and field team to its first national championship, in 1948, and to its first Big Ten Championship, in 1949. In leading the program to prominence, he coached 36 Big Ten individual champions, seven NCAA champions, and 15 All-Americans.
In 1956, Kelly was named national Coach of the Year, and he became the first person to serve as both chairman of the Olympic track committee and head coach of the U.S. National Team. Amidst trials-scheduling controversy, he suffered an April heart attack but continued to coach the Gophers, through a car window. Another heart attack sidelined him in August. Doubt arose about whether he could coach the Olympic team, and whether the U.S. could prevail over the powerful Soviet Union. The U.S. team’s 15 gold medals, though, were the most collected by any team since the 1896 revival of the Games.Kelly was the U.S. track coach for the first Pan-American Games in 1951 and a founding member of the National Collegiate Basketball Coaches and Track Coaches Associations. He was inducted into the Helms Foundation Track and Field, Drake Relays, Iowa and USATF Minnesota Track and Field Halls of Fame.