Leland Hafen was born in Santa Clara, Utah, in 1895 and after a fine athletic career was signed as an athletic coach at Dixie in the fall of 1926. For the next twenty years Coach Hafen guided the athletic program at Dixie, and for a period of ten years (1926-1936) coached both the high school and college squads. Until 1963 Dixie College and Dixie High School were combined into what was called upper and lower divisions . From 1936 until 1946 Coach Hafen coached only the high school but was the athletic director and taught classes in history to both upper and lower division students .
Coach Hafen's record as an athletic coach was outstanding: it included as a college coach, one conference championship, one southern division championship, second place in the conference play-off on two different occasions, third in the conference two years, second in the southern division twice , and two seasons when his team placed fourth. His high school record was equally as eminent , having taken his "Fliers" to the state meet on thirteen occasions in this twenty-year span. His finishes were as follows: one championship , three second places , two third places, consolation was played for on four occasions , and on only two occasions did a Dixie team fail to compete all four nights of the tournament . Added to these fetes was the fact that at that time there was just one classification, no "A" or "B" alignments , so he was usually competing against much larger schools.
Coach Hafen possessed a wonderful personality, and made friends wherever he went. He took a great deal of pride in Utah's Dixie and enjoyed telling the many people he met about his homeland , which included all of Southern Utah.
Coach Hafen held many positions of responsibility in both the Utah Activities Association and the I. C. A. C. Conference, and as athletic director of Dixie he realized a life long dream when in 1957 an ultra modern fieldhouse was built, which includes not only a fine athletic layout but also physical education facilities for both men and women.
Physical Education for a ll age groups meant a lot to Coach Lee and he was a great advocate of fitness for both men and women as witnessed by the modern skillrooms dance studios, etc. , etc. , which can be found in the gym.
On November 23, 1959 , Coach Hafen died of complications following surgery in the Dixie Memorial Hospital.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-3877 |
| Date | 01 May 1968 |
| Creators | Allred, Douglas V. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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