RIPON, Wis. - Part of Ripon's second-ever Hall of Fame class, Earl "Blackie" Zamzow '50 is an all-time great at Ripon College, helping the Redmen football team win the 1948 Midwest Conference Championship, and breaking school records, while also competing nationally, in track & field.

A two-time First Team All-Conference selection as an Offensive Guard on the gridiron, Zamzow was named Second Team All-American as a Senior in 1949. During his final two seasons with the team, Zamzow helped the Redmen to a combined 11-4-1 record, including a 10-1-1 mark in the Midwest Conference.

As great as Zamzow was on the football field, he was even better in track & field, where he was a six-time conference champion. He won both the high jump and long jump three times during his career, while setting school records in the pole vault and low hurdles, both of which have since been broken. Zamzow scored 350 total points at all meets combined during his four-year career, which stood as a school record at the time and still ranks 10th in program history.

During his Hall of Fame induction, Zamrow is on record as saying, "Thank you to Ripon College for being the kind of school where a student can become an athlete, and an athlete can become a student, and thanks to (longtime and legendary Ripon coach) Carl Doehling for stressing a sound mind and a sound body."

Upon his graduation in 1950, Zamzow competed in the 1950 AAU National Decathlon Championships, where he finished ninth in the same meet that saw winner Bob Mathias set a World Record in the event. Zamzow, who beat Mathias in one event during that meet, went on to spend 30 years of active duty service for the U.S. Army Reserves, retiring as Colonel in 1989.

A native of nearby Berlin, Wis. and high school classmates with fellow Ripon great "Doc" Weiske '50, Zamzow went on to become a teacher and coach at both West Allis Central and Whitefish Bay High School. At Whitefish Bay, Zamzow led his track & field team to the 1970 Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) State Championship, while finishing as State runner-up in 1972, 1973, and 1975. He was inducted into the WIAA Hall of Fame in 1995.

In his memoirs, written three months prior to his death in 2009, Zamzow had this to say about his post-Ripon career, "I don't know what, if any part, I played in the development of a student's lifestyle, but for me, the teaching of the subject matter and the coaching of athletic skills were secondary to my desire to act like a role model and perhaps a mentor to my students so that they will find success, happiness and meaning to their life."


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