Awards

IUB Athletics Hall of Fame - 1982

Olympians - 1936

Men's Track and Field Assistant Coach

United States of America

Berlin, Germany

Assistant Coach

About E.C. Billy Hayes

Earle C. "Billy" Hayes already had a reputation as a builder of champions and Olympians when IU athletic director Zora Clevenger reached down to Mississippi State to bring Hayes back to his Hoosier homeland.

Hayes, hired by Clevenger as IU's head track coach and a football assistant to Bill Ingram, grew up near Madison, Indiana. At Albion College in Michigan, he captained the football team, won eight athletic letters, and was president of his class of 1910. In 1912, he went to Mississippi State as head basketball and track coach and manager of the bookstore. He was head football coach there for four years before Clevenger hired him.

Quickly, he built Indiana into a national track and cross country power, even during the three years (1931-33) when he added duties as head football coach and brought in his 1928 Olympic 1,500-meter runner from Mississippi State, Sid Robinson, to help with the distance runners. Hayes and Robinson stayed together as a remarkable team, Robinson achieving esteem as an eminent researcher in physiology in addition to his role as a Hayes aide.

Hayes' runners, jumpers and throwers won an Olympic gold medal and 11 NCAA titles, and he coached 23 different athletes who won Big Ten championships. He was a charter member of the IU Athletics Hall of Fame and an assistant coach on the 1936 Olympic team.