Lamson, Robert ((abt 1906-1967)

LAMSON, KILLEBREW

Posted By: Debbie Greenfield (email)
Date: 10/17/2015 at 17:12:29

Daily Freeman Journal, Saturday, February 11, 1967

Coach Lamson Dies Suddenly at Ames Hospital

Robert Lamson, 61, former Webster City coach and athletic director and an assistant basketball coach at Iowa State University since 1949, died late Friday afternoon at an Ames hospital following surgery for the removal of a tumor on his colon.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Collegiate Methodist church in Ames with burial in the Iowa State University cemetery. The Rev. Wilbur Wilcox will officate. The body is lying in state at the Adams Funeral home in Ames.

Coach Lamson, popularly referred to as "the silver fox" during his high school coaching career at Webster City, brought Webster City its highest basketball ranking in its history when his quintet won second place behind Mason City in the 1943 Iowa State Boys' tournament at Des Moines.

He also took his cage crews to the state tourney in 1936, 1938 and 1939. Two of his Lynx football teams were undefeated and untied, and several of his teams won the North Central Conference championship. One of his most powerful teams, in 1944, was paced by Bill Chauncey who went on to become a star back at Iowa State.

Perhaps his greatest year in football in Webster City was his 1936 Lynx crew which defeated Iowa Falls, 14-9 on Nov. 6, to complete a spectacular record of eight straight victories, being unscored upon during the entire season while racking up a total of 261 points.

Lamson, 61, had been a coach for nearly 38 years, 20 of them in high school and junior college at Webster City before he came to Iowa State in 1949.

On the Cyclone staff he had been an assistant in basketball since 1954 and also coached the golf team.

Lamson, a native of Fairfield where he was a three-sport man in high school, had complained of feeling ill Thursday after team practice and entered Mary Greeley Hospital here.

Lamson attended Parsons College for two years, competed in football, basketball and track, which had been his specialties in high school, and was named a football back on an all-Iowa Conference team.

After his sophomore year at Parsons, he transferred to Iowa State, picking up two letters in football and one in basketball.

He was on the Cyclone athletic staff for half a year after graduation in 1928 and later served for 20 years as coach and athletic director at Webster City from 1929 to 1949.

He is survived by his widow, Margaret, and three children, one of whom is Chuck Lamson of Denver, Colo., a football player with the Los Angeles Rams professional team. Another son, Jim, and a daughter, Mrs. Richard Killebrew live in Des Moines.