{"id":144777,"date":"2022-03-04T11:12:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T16:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=144777"},"modified":"2022-03-05T14:34:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T19:34:54","slug":"george-wigton-bates-obituary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2022\/03\/04\/george-wigton-bates-obituary\/","title":{"rendered":"George L. Wigton, legendary and influential Bates coach of ‘impeccable integrity and perspective,’ dies at age 93"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George L. Wigton, a legendary and influential Bates head coach of \u201cimpeccable integrity and perspective\u201d across four varsity sports, died March 1, 2022, at age 93.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wigton coached at Bates from 1965 until his retirement in 1996, serving at various times as head coach of six men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams in four sports. He remains the longest-serving head coach of men\u2019s basketball (20 years) and men\u2019s tennis (26 years). He also coached men\u2019s soccer from 1965 to 1972, women\u2019s tennis for eight years, and varsity men\u2019s and women\u2019s squash as the program\u2019s founding coach in 1986 until 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Memorial Information<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A celebration of the life of George Wigton will take place in early June. Memories may be shared at the family’s obituary page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Inducted into the National College Squash Association Hall of Fame in 1996, Wigton was praised as \u201ca man of impeccable integrity and perspective\u201d who instilled in his teams \u201cfairness, professionalism, and sportsmanship: the qualities George represents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wigton\u2019s contributions as a Bates coach hearkens back to an era in Division III sports when a coach was expected to coach sports in all three seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Wigton, seen in this circa 1980 photograph, coached at Bates from 1965 until his retirement in 1996, serving at various times as head coach of six men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams in four sports. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For coaches like Wigton and his late Bates colleagues Bob Hatch, Web Harrison \u201963, Chick Leahey \u201952, and Bob Flynn, the approach to their work was, \u201cYou want me to coach this? OK. You want me to coach that? OK,\u201d says Paul Gastonguay \u201889, an All-American tennis player for Wigton and the current head coach of men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Gastonguay and so many others, Wigton\u2019s human touch and his understanding of the needs of his athletes and how to motivate them were as valuable as his knowledge of his specific sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 1974, coach George Wigton poses with his tennis players Dirk Visser ’74 and Pat McInerney ’75. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCoach Wigton had those qualities,\u201d said Gastonguay. \u201cHe was a special man who got to know every person on his team. You respected him for that, and you wanted to do your best for him. For Coach, it was all about the person first, the athlete second \u2014 about giving students opportunities to gain life skills and become better people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We could take him as a human being, not just a figure who was a coach.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For a Bates Magazine<\/em> story in 1996, Bud Schultz \u201981, who developed into an All-American tennis player for Wigton, recalled how his coach \u201cset the tone very early by saying he\u2019d try to be fair to everyone, but just like us he\u2019d have good and bad days. It was a great tone to set because we could take him as a human being, not just a figure who was a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schultz went on to a professional career in the sport, achieving a ranking of 40th in the world in 1986, and he credited Wigton with bolstering his confidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe always encouraged and pushed me without ever being overbearing. He went to bat for me a number of times to give me another opportunity [at the national level], opportunities I just wouldn\u2019t have gotten otherwise. He helped me to realize I was a good enough athlete to compete at a higher level. He made me feel comfortable and excited about going after bigger and better opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Wigton tallks with his basketball team in the final seconds of a winning 1968 game vs. Bowdoin. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Born in 1929 in Oberlin, Ohio, he served in the U.S. Navy before attending The Ohio State University, leading his Naval Base Norfolk basketball team to the All-Navy championship. At Ohio State, he was a varsity basketball and track athlete, graduating in 1956. For nine years, he was an assistant coach of football, basketball, and track at the University of Connecticut. He also taught and coached at Staples High School in Westport, Conn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1963, Wigton, then the freshman coach, gained notice after being named interim head coach of the Husky men\u2019s basketball team after the team\u2019s head coach died unexpectedly in January of that year. He led the team to an 11\u20134 record, a conference title, and an NCAA appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWigton..deserves the cheers of the crowd,\u201d wrote the Hartford Courant<\/em> in March. Wigton \u201chad the country\u2019s most difficult assignment but he carried it out admirably. It would be quite impossible to pay Wigton a higher compliment than simply to record the fact that his players carried him off the floor on their shoulders\u201d and the end of the team\u2019s final game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he did not win the permanent job, and in 1965 came to Bates as head men\u2019s basketball coach, plus \u201cother duties as assigned,\u201d which included coaching men\u2019s soccer in the fall and men\u2019s tennis in the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Wigton congratulates his newly elected senior captains for the 1970\u201371 men’s basketball season, Tim Colby, the late Pete Hutchins, and Jeff Thompson. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In soccer, he was an original Ted Lasso. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how many players were on a team,\u201d he said in an oral history interview in 2017. Wigton tried to convince then\u2013Director of Athletics Lloyd Lux that soccer wasn\u2019t for him, but the AD persisted, telling Wigton that soccer \u201cis just basketball with your feet.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he studied up on the sport before arriving at Bates and made the wise decision to enlist help from the team\u2019s star player, Robert Thompson ’66. \u201cGreat player,\u201d Wigton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is a testament to Wigton\u2019s self-awareness of his abilities and limitations as a coach and the trust he instilled in his players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this 2017 interview, George Wigton humorously recalls being appointed to the Bates coaching staff in 1965 as men’s basketball coach, and also being asked to coach soccer \u2014 without knowing anything about the sport.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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He called Thompson into his office. \u201cI told him, \u2018I don’t know if you know, but I know nothing about soccer \u2014 nothing.\u2019 I told him that I wasn\u2019t sure how many guys are there on a team. And Bob laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wigton made this promise to his player: \u201cI will be good in administration and organization. I will get you guys in shape. But I really need your help.\u2019 He says, \u201cO.K.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So at the first practice, Thompson arrived early, and he and Wigton cooked up a plan. Thompson would tell Wigton what to do, and then \u201con the field be a silent coach.\u201d And he meant silent<\/em>. \u201cI told Bob that when he wanted to do something, he would just whisper it in my ear and it would get done \u2014 but don’t announce it to the team.\u2019 He said, \u2018That’s great.\u2019\u201d And we worked out great.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Thompson, it remains a great memory and lesson of his Bates experience. \u201cCoach was upfront from the beginning,\u201d he told the Bates Bobcast <\/a>in 2020. \u201cIt was a little more responsibility than I would normally have, but I was captain anyway. But he soaked it up like a sponge and he’s an athlete and he’s a coach by nature, so he understood. It was great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Wigton poses with team captain Donald Geissler ’70 in 1970. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At Bates, in addition to being inducted into the National College Squash Association Hall of Fame, he received the Alvin Julian Award from the New England Basketball Coaches\u2019 Association in 1981 for \u201cenhancing the game of basketball,\u201d the Maine Basketball Coaches and Writers Association\u2019s Man of the Year in 1987 and was honored several times by the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, most recently in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In men\u2019s tennis, his team won a NESCAC Championship in 1988, and he was named the NCAA East Region Division III Coach of the Year in 1996. At his retirement, his many friends and former players established The George L. Wigton Scholar Fund in his honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George coached four All-Americans: Rob Thompson \u201966 (soccer), Herb Taylor \u201984 (basketball), and, in tennis, Bud Schultz \u201981 and current men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis coach Paul Gastonguay \u201989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the time Gastonguay arrived at Bates in 1985 to now, NESCAC has become the dominant Division III athletic conference in the nation. What would fly in the 1960s \u2014 the appointment of a coach without deep knowledge of a sport, recruiting abilities, and coaching prowess \u2014 is unheard of now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNESCAC attracts athletes that are at the pinnacle of their discipline,\u201d Gastonguay says. \u201cIf they\u2019re not looking at the Ivy League, then they\u2019re looking at NESCAC. They want both high-level academics and coaches who can take them to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is still worth carrying forward in recalling Wigton as a coach \u2014 and what Gastonguay and other coaches hope to uphold \u2014 is that \u201cthe coaches who are the most highly regarded try to think of athletes as part of their family.\u201d And that\u2019s what Wigton did, \u201cwhether it was dinners at his house or visits to his camp during Short Term. He was such a generous guy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Herb
George Wigton (second from left) speaks during a 2014 memorial tree-planting ceremony honoring Herb Bunker, a founding figure of Bates squash. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not that Wigton wasn\u2019t a fierce competitor. \u201cHe could have a \u2018Led Tasso\u2019 moment as a coach,\u201d Gastonguay laughs, referring to the episode when Lasso gets tough on his team to get a point across.  \u201cBut as a coach sometimes you have to be tough to create a sense of higher urgency to get to the next level, when the team is just rolling along. Coach would do that, but everyone knew it was from love.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mainly, Gastonguay and others celebrate Wigton\u2019s class and kindness and the high expectations he had of his athletes as representative of their sport and school<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe understood that sports provide the opportunity to gain life skills and become better people. That\u2019s his coaching lineage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wigton, a legendary and influential Bates head coach of \u201cimpeccable integrity and perspective\u201d across four varsity sports, died March 1, 2022, at age 93.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":144801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144777"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144813,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144777\/revisions\/144813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}