BELDING, Lester Cort

BELDING, JONES, WEST, ANDERSON, MCAULEY, WESTON, KRIZ, SLATER, LOCKE, DEVINE, HLFPAP

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 11/11/2014 at 00:59:08

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, June 29, 1940, Page 20

THEY STARTED HERE
No. 15 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

LESTER CORT BELDING, College Coach

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No unfamiliar name for the last 25 seasons to Iowa sports fans has been that of Lester C. Belding, former Mason city high school grid great, a star on the famous University of Iowa teams under Coach Howard Jones, and since his graduation an outstanding athletic coach in both high school and college circles.

Now [1940] head coach at Dakota Wesleyan university in Mitchell, S. Dak., Lester Belding can look back on a quarter of a century of outstanding records in athletics, first as a participant and later as a tutor.

Born Dec. 5, 1900, in Mason City, he began to show an interest and an ability in athletics almost as quickly as he was able to walk. He grew rapidly and by the time he was in high school was big enough and good enough to win a position on the outstanding football teams turned out by Coach C. A. "Jack" West, now coach at the University of North Dakota.

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Mason Cityans will well remember the teams on which Lester Belding played in 1914, 1915 and 1916, for it is probable that few if any Iowa high school football teams have ever turned out records equal to those made by Coach West's aggregations. Nor have many boasted as many fine athletes, for Lester Belding's teammates included Eddie Anderson, who played the opposite end from the new Dakota Wesleyan coach, Jack Funk, Raymond "Red' Weston, David McAuley and others.

In 1917 Lester C. Belding was graduated from the Mason City high school and matriculated at the University of Iowa, where he took up civil engineering.

The year 1917 was a war year and for that reason freshmen were made eligible for intercollegiate competition. Lester Belding and a Garner boy, Jerry Kriz, were the only two freshmen who were able to make the team. Kriz later was forced to leave school, leaving the Mason Cityan as the only Iowa athlete to win four major letters in football in the history of the school.

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Iowa's football teams enjoyed considerable success, but it was in 1921 that they reached top recognition. Playing under Coach Howard Jones, now of the University of Southern California, the Hawkeyes stormed to the pinnacles of greatness and made the names of Aubrey and Glenn Devine, Fred "Duke" Slater, Gordon Locke and Lester Belding immortal in Iowa athletic annals.

Coach Belding played right end on that team, next to Slater, and had an outstanding part in the success of the Hawkeyes, in addition to his line play he also did a little placekicking when Aubrey Devine was not in the game to make one of his famous dropkicks.

One of the teams the Hawkeyes met and vanquished that year was Notre Dame, then riding at the crest of a long winning streak and captained by another Mason Cityan, Eddie Anderson. Most football fans in Iowa know the outcome of that game. Iowa won, 10 to 7. The two Mason Cityans, both playing end, did not get together much on the field, however, for they were at opposite ends of the line.

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Although he was a big man - he stood more than six feet tall and weighed approximately 200 pounds - the Mason Cityan was fast on his feet and competed four years on the Iowa track team as a sprinter in the 100 and 220 yard dashes. He won four letters in track as well as football and held several records. He was also a good swimmer and captained the Eels swimming organization while in school, Other activities attracted his attention and he served as president of the Delta Chi organization, then an engineering school group. He made an outstanding record in the classroom as well.

At the close of the 1921 football season and of the Mason Cityan's grid career, he was chosen All-America, All-Western and All-Big Ten conference end.

After being graduated from college, with scholastic as well as athletic honors. [Lester was the first player at the University of Iowa to be named All-American (1920). He was considered to be one of the nation's premier collegiate pass catchers of his era. He was three times selected for the first team All-Big Ten Conference.]

In the spring of 1922, Lester Belding turned to coaching and went to Boulder, Colo., where he stayed one year before returning to Iowa and take over the coaching reins at Clinton. There he turned out two state championship football teams and was presented a sportsmanship trophy by the Clinton businessmen in recognition of the fine work in character building he had done.

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An opportunity then came for college coaching, and he went to Chapel Hill, N. Car., as freshman coach for the University of North Carolina. A year later an opening as high school coach at Greensboro, N. Car., came and he was recommended for the job and accpeted. He was there for seven years.

Then his mother became ill and he left the Greensboro position to accept a coaching job at Reinbeck in order to be closer to her. He continued to have successful teams and following the death of Mrs. Belding became coach at Dakota Wesleyan.

The Dakota Wesleyan position was not sought after - it came seeking him. The president of the school visited the former Mason Cityan at Reinbeck and told him that he had been recommended by University of Iowa authorities for the coaching position. Being a denominational school, Dakota Wesleyan wanted a man who was scrupulous in his personal habits and who would be a character builder as well as a coach.

The school was convinced that Lester Belding was the man it wanted.

Coach Belding does not drink or use tobacco and will not allow his atheltes to do so.

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At Dakota Wesleyan the former Mason Cityan has been turning out winning teams in boty football and basketball for the last seven years. For the last four years he has been taking teams to the national basketball tourney at Kansas City.

He and Mrs. Belding, who is a former Fort Dodge girl, live in Mitchell and have a five year old daughter. Summers the former Mason Cityan continues with his education, already holding a master's degree.

Hi sis still a young man - not yet 40 - and has many years ahead of him of coaching, building fine minds and fine bodies. And he is in an ideal spot for that type of work, for Dakota Wesleyan does not maintain the pressure for consistent winners that might be found in bigger schools. All it asks is a fulsome (sic), healthy handling of its young men. And Lester Belding is the man for that job.

[During Lester's 12 years at Dakota Wesleyan, his teams won four conference championships in basketball and another in football. He served on a planning committee to establish the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball, the forerunner of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).]

NOTE: Lester Belding was the athletic director, head football coach and head basketball coach at Dakota Wesleyan from 1934 to 1945. He finished his career upon completing 20 years (1945-1965) a track and football coach and athletic director at North Central College, Naperville, Illinois. During the 1945-46 academic year, Lester was instrumental in the planning and establishment of the College Conference of Illinois (CCI), later known as teh College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW).

He was inducted into the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame in 1963.

Lester Cort Belding died of a heart attack at the age of 64 years on May 27, 1965. He was posthumously inducted into the University of Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 1991.

Elsie (Halfpap) Belding, the daughter of Berthold and Hellen Halfpap, was born at Fort Dodge, Iowa, on March 9, 1905, and died December 23, 1948, Naperville, Illinois. Lester and Elsie were interred at Naperville Cemetery, Naperville, Illinois.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Additional information from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Belding

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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