Beloit College

The leadership ability which Major Griffith demonstrated as the first “Big Ten Commissioner” for twenty-two years was evident in his undergraduate days at Beloit where, although not an outstanding athlete, he was prominent in the managerial side of collegiate sports.  He was later director of athletics and coach at Yankton and Morningside Colleges and while serving in that capacity at Drake University for nine years, established the Drake Relays, nationally famous spring track event.  In World War I, as a major, he had charge of physical education and bayonet training for the entire United States Army.  While at the University of Illinois after the war, he founded the Athletic Journal, still published by his son.  From that institution he was called to the full time post of Commissioner of the Western Collegiate Conference known as the Big Ten, a post he retained until his death in 1944.  He had been president of the National collegiate Athletic Association and served that group for ten years as secretary-treasurer.  In his selection for the Helms Hall of Fame in 1951, he was described as “one of America’s foremost athletic leaders of all time.”