LEWISBURG, PA– Bucknell University and the Department of Athletics & Recreation mourn the loss of a true Bison coaching legend, Bob Odell, who passed away Saturday morning at the age of 90. A member of the Bucknell Athletics, Middle Atlantic Conference and College Football Halls of Fame, Odell guided the Bison football program through one of its greatest eras in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
As head football coach at Bucknell from 1958-64, Bob Odell had a 37-26 record and led the 1960 and 1964 teams to Lambert Cup championships as the top college football team in the East. After two losing seasons in 1958 and 1959, his Bison teams went 32-13 over the next five seasons.
A native of Corning, Iowa, Odell was an All-America halfback at Pennsylvania. He won the Maxwell Trophy and was runner-up to Angelo Bertelli for the Heisman Trophy in 1943. A second-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1944, Odell was inducted into the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame in 1992.
Following service as a communications officer in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he was an assistant coach at Yale, Temple and Wisconsin before coming to Bucknell.
While at Wisconsin, he recruited and coached the great Alan Ameche, the 1954 Heisman Trophy winner. After leaving Bucknell, Odell was head coach at Penn (1965-70) and Williams (1971-86). In 1987 he was honored by the New England Football Writers Association with the George C. Carens Award for outstanding contributions to New England football.
After retiring from Williams in 1986, Odell returned to Lewisburg and served as a volunteer assistant coach until 1990.
The position of Bucknell head football coach is now named in Odell’s honor, and a permanent monument recognizing his career and his contributions to Bucknell was erected in Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium in 2005.
