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| The late Marcelino “Chelo” Huerta led the Shocker football program from 1962-64. |
This August, a former Shocker gridiron great will be the first Hispanic coach inducted into the national College Football Hall of Fame.
The late Marcelino “Chelo” Huerta, head football coach at Wichita State from 1962-64, will be one of three head coaches and six players inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame Aug. 9-10 in South Bend, Ind.
“Our family is grateful the hall of fame has remembered and honored my father,” said his son, Marcelino Huerta III, after the May announcement of the honor by Jon F. Hanson, chairman of the National Football Foundation and the cfhf. “At every speech he would thank his immigrant parents from Spain for instilling in him that with hard work and honesty anyone can achieve in America. He would thank my mother, Gloria, for joining him on this football adventure, and then he would say a prayer of thanks.”
Huerta, who coached the Shockers for three seasons, came highly recommended for the job at WSU. He carried with him credentials from legendary Alabama head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, Arkansas athletic director Frank Broyles, as well as Gov. Ferris Bryant of Florida and outgoing Shocker head football coach Hank Foldberg, who resigned from the program to fill the head coaching vacancy at Texas A&M.
At WSU, Huerta posted a 14-15 record, with his second season in 1963 being the most successful when he led the Shockers to a 7-2 record, won the Missouri Valley Conference co-championship and finished second in the nation in total offense, averaging 388.4 yards per game and sixth in the country in total points scored. For his effort, he was named the mvc Coach of the Year.
“He always measured his success as a coach by what his players achieved,” Huerta III said.
Huerta coached six Shocker players who went on to play in the National Football League and one former WSU alumnus who became one of the most successful coaches in the NFL: defensive end Marvin “Butch” Davis (1963-65), Denver Broncos (1966); halfback Miller Farr (1962-63), Denver Broncos (1965), San Diego Chargers (1965-66), Houston Oilers (1967-69), St. Louis Cardinals (1970-72), Detroit Lions (1973); wide receiver Bob Long (1963), Green Bay Packers (1964-67), Altanta Falcons (1968), Washington Redskins (1969), Los Angeles Rams (1970); halfback Sullivan “Pete” Mills (1963), Buffalo Bills (1965-66); quarterback Henry Schichtle (1962-63), New York Giants (1964-65); and cornerback/linebacker Jim Waskiewicz (1963-65), New York Jets (1966-67), Atlanta Falcons (1969); and the WSU player and former Shocker assistant coach who went on to become an nfl head coach, Bill Parcells, won two Super Bowl championships with the New York Giants.
Huerta was active in the Wichita community.
He worked with the Rotary Club, Boy Scouts of America, Wichita Tuberculosis Association, the American Football Coaches Association and served on the board of directors for the ymca. He was also a popular speaker on the banquet circuit and on local radio and television programs. After his stint at Wichita State, he was the head football coach and director of athletics at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, from 1964-69. During his years there, he posted a 23-5-0 record en route to a career record of 104-53-2.
Before coming to WSU, Huerta, a native of Tampa, Fla., spent the first 10 seasons of his career at the University of Tampa, where he started out as an assistant football coach and two years later became the youngest athletics director and head football coach in the nation at age 28. Huerta compiled a 66-32-2 record (.670) coaching the Spartans, the best in school history as well as any college coach in the state of Florida in the same span.
Huerta attended the University of Florida, where he was a star guard for the Gators, and graduated in 1949. Yet athletics was far from the only pursuit he was known for in Florida and elsewhere. A decorated World War II bomber pilot, he was named Most Outstanding Young Man in the City of Tampa in 1954, for his distinguished work with physically handicapped children. He also received the Pop Warner Award for “doing the most” for the youth in the state of Florida in 1959.
Prior to his death in 1985, he served on the President’s Council on employment for the handicapped and as executive vice president for the McDonald’s Training Center Foundation.
— WSU Sports Information
