Men’s Basketball, Baseball, Football
Just through sheer numbers, Bill Reinhart is the runaway pick for Colonial Coach of the Century.
For 24 seasons from 1935 to 1966 (in two tenures broken by service during World War II), Reinhart led the men’s basketball team to 316 wins and 239 losses and two NCAA Tournament appearances. He was the coach of two of The Hatchet’s greatest teams of the century. He recruited the likes of Joe Holup, Bob Faris and Red Auerbach. The people he brought to Foggy Bottom were the shapers of the Colonial century, and, through Auerbach, he even shaped the NBA.
When Reinhart retired from basketball (after GW slipped into mediocrity in the 1960s), he was the fourth-winningest coach in NCAA history.
But he wasn’t just the winningest basketball coach. He was also the best baseball coach GW’s ever had. He led the Colonials to a 193-133 record from 1950-1966, winning three Southern Conference championships, resulting in three NCAA appearances. Current GW baseball coach Tom Walter named Reinhart the coach of his all-century baseball team earlier this year.
The man who quarterbacked Oregon in the 1919 Rose Bowl also coached GW’s football team from 1938 to 1941, going 16-17-2.
Reinhart was inducted into the GW Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993, which begs the question: What took so long?