Hall of Fame
A native of Mount Carroll, Ill., Griffith wore many hats with the Bulldogs, serving as athletics director, head football coach and track and field coach from 1908-15.
In 1910, he founded the Drake Relays -- the most successful regular-season sporting event held by an MVC school -- which annually attracts over 36,000 fans, 9,000 track and field athletes and 50 Olympians. He served as director of the event from 1910 to 1918.
In 2009, the Drake Relays will celebrate its 100th birthday, with the event taking place on April 24-26.
The director of physical education for the entire U.S. Army during World War I, he was the first commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, serving from 1922 to 1944. He had just been re-elected to another five-year term when he died on Dec. 7, 1944.
Griffith was the first membership chairman of the NCAA from 1933-37, before the NCAA had an executive director or president as it does now.
A four-sport letterman at Beloit College, he is a member of the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame, the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Beloit Hall of Fame.