Hall of Fame
Football Coach & Athletic Director (1939-46)
The University of Nevada hadn’t had a winning football season for 13 years until Jim Aiken came west in 1939 and turned things around. Aiken immediately produced a winning team and laid the groundwork for the Wolf Pack’s rise to prominence in the late 1940s.
Born near Wheeling West Virginia and raised in Tiltonsville, Ohio, he was a standout high school athlete. Following the First World War, Aiken enrolled at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, Penn., and earned four letters in football as an end for the Presidents. He was a senior on the 1921 team under head coach Greasy Neale which played California to a scoreless tie in the Rose Bowl.
Following graduation in 1922, Aiken embarked on a successful coaching career. He coached at high schools in Pennsylvania and Ohio and then was named the head coach at the University of Akron where he posted a 19–7–1 record from 1936-38. He came to Nevada in 1939, and his first team turned in a 5-4 record and won the Far Western Conference title. Aiken then pulled Nevada out of the FWC to pursue an independent role. A strict disciplinarian, his teams were always superbly conditioned. Aiken recruited far and wide, and many of his players went on to the pro ranks. These included Marion Motley, Gus Cifelli, Buster McClure, Scott Beasley, Tom Kalmanir, Ed Sharkey, Don Talcott, Horace Gillom, Bill Bass and Bill Mackrides.
During World War II, when most colleges without military cadet training programs dropped football, Aiken kept the sport alive at Nevada. At one time he combined personnel with Reno Army Air Base’s team due to the lack of available students. Aiken’s efforts paid off in 1946 when his team – strengthened by returning servicemen and new recruits – turned in a 7-2 record. The ’46 Pack also set several national NCAA records. He also served as Nevada’s athletics director from 1939-46 and even coached the basketball team from 1944-45.
He then moved on to coach at University of Oregon in 1947 where he produced a Cotton Bowl team in his second year. Aiken retired from college coaching after four seasons in Eugene and entered the lumber business in southern Oregon, where he lived until he passed away in 1962.
