Al Kircher
Alton S. Kircher was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach.
Early years
Born in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin, Kircher grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Gladstone. He was a star athlete at Gladstone High School and then attended Michigan State College in East Lansing, where he earned nine letters in football, basketball, and baseball for the Spartans. Kircher was the quarterback on the football team and the captain of the basketball team. An outfielder in baseball, he had a batting average of.430 in 1933.Coaching career
Kircher began his coaching career in Michigan at Trout Creek High School in 1935 as the basketball coach, and won two state titles, in 1935 and 1937. Kircher moved to Marquette in 1937 and coached at Marquette High School.Kircher returned to his alma mater, Michigan State, as an assistant coach in three sports from 1939 to 1950, and was head basketball coach for 1949–50 season. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army and was wounded during the Normandy invasion, earning a Purple Heart. He was later awarded a Silver Star and two Bronze Stars.
When fellow Spartan assistant Forest Evashevski was hired as the head football coach at Washington State College of the Pacific Coast Conference in 1950, Kircher followed him west and joined his staff in Pullman as backfield coach. In Evashevski's second season in 1951, the Cougars were 7–3, their best record since 1932. Evashevski left for Iowa of the Big Ten Conference in January 1952 and Kircher planned to go east with him, but was promoted and stayed on the Palouse as the 20th head coach of the Cougar football program.
Kircher's Cougars were 4–6 in each of his first three seasons, but fell to 1–7–2 in 1955 and he was fired days after the final game, a loss to rival Washington. His overall record for four seasons was 13–25–2.