Frank "Red" Crist (1985) - Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame

Frank "Red" Crist

Induction:
1985
Class:
1926

Nobody in the history of Marshall athletics has suited up for more seasons of competition than Frank Willis “Red” Crist, who donned the Green and White for the Marshall varsity for eight seasons – four while still a student at the high school operated by Marshall and then four more years while in college. The Huntington native’s time coincided perfectly with the era in which Marshall ran the laboratory high school as part of its status as the state Normal School (teacher’s college issuing two-year degrees), and then began granting four-year degrees, affording Crist the unusual status of being the football team’s captain in 1920 and again in 1925.

Such a prodigy that he played for the varsity as a high school freshman in the 1917-18 school year when many of the males on campus were serving in the military during World War I, Crist played quarterback for the football team and was a pitcher and outfielder for the baseball team. Crist was a member of the 1919 football team that went 8-0 under Coach Archer Reilly, outscoring the opposition by a combined total of 302-13, and helped the 1925 squad of Coach Trusty Tallman to an unusual 4-1-4 record and the inaugural West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship. That 1925 team won its first two games of the year, then registered four consecutive ties against Marietta, New River State (later West Virginia Tech), Transylvania and Salem. On the diamond, Crist pitched and batted .380 for the 1924 team that logged a 7-2 record. Following his graduation from Marshall, Crist played several seasons of minor league baseball for the Columbus Senators, Huntington Boosters, Beckley Black Knights, Fairmont Black Diamonds and Charleston Senators.

Crist also played basketball and ran track for Marshall, and Huntington sportswriter Duke Ridgley wrapped up the redhead's career in a 1925 column with, "During his eight years at Marshall College, "Red" Crist won 32 letters, 24 sweaters, 6 medals, 10 blankets, 15 silver trophies, was picked All-Everything seven times and had his picture printed running backwards in Spaulding's Rule Book." Crist was inducted into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 1985.