John Wilce John Woodworth " Jack " Wilce ( May 12 , 1888 – May 17 , 1963 ) was an American football player and coach , physician , and university professor . He served as the head football coach at Ohio State University from 1913 to 1928 , compiling a record of 78 – 33 – 9 . He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1954 . Early years and playing career . Wilce was born in Rochester , New York . He lettered in three sports while attending the University of Wisconsin . In football , Wilce was an all - conference fullback and captain of the 1909 team . Coaching career . Following his graduation from Wisconsin , Wilce coached high school football in La Crosse , Wisconsin and then became both an assistant football coach and assistant professor of physical education at Wisconsin . In 1913 , Ohio State began play in the Western Conference , later the Big Ten Conference , and hired Wilce as its head football coach . Wilce ' s teams won a conference championship in 1916 with a 7 – 0 record , and repeated in 1917 ( 8 – 0 – 1 ) and in 1920 ( 7 – 1 ) when Ohio State played its first bowl game , losing the 1921 Rose Bowl to California , 28 – 0 . Wilce coached the Ohio State Buckeyes football team for sixteen seasons , the second longest tenure in school history after Woody Hayes , compiling a career record of 78 – 33 – 9 . Medical and academic career . In 1919 , Wilce received his medical degree . He retired from football after the 1928 season to practice medicine . Wilce completed postgraduate training in cardiology at University of Edinburgh in the 1930s and was a professor of preventive medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine , specializing in research and treatment of heart disease . He also served as Director of Student Health Services from 1934 to 1958 . The John W . Wilce Student Health Center , built in 1969 , is named for Wilce . Wilce ' s " combination of medicine and football " and a sense of propriety that reflected his English heritage led him to try to reform the speech of his players on and off the field . He coined the phrase " intestinal fortitude . " Haber ( 1955 ) records the story of the coinage , the idea first coming to Wilce on the way to a lecture he was to present on anatomy and physiology at Ohio State in 1916 , his first use of the phrase in public in a lecture to his team , and how he began to hear the phrase used by others . Honors and death . In 1954 , Wilce was selected for enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame and was elected a member of the Ohio State Varsity O Hall of Fame in 1977 . His academic honors include the Ohio State Distinguished Service Award in 1956 . He died of complications of cardiovascular disease on May 17 , 1963 , in the Columbus suburb of Westerville , Ohio . Of his departure from coaching he was quoted : " Football was becoming too much of a business . The game was being taken away from the boys . I was a faculty - type coach who believed educational aspects were more important than winning games . " Family . Wilce was survived by his wife , Minerva Connor Wilce , sons Jay and James M . " Jim " Wilce ( 1922 – 1988 ) , and daughters Roseanne Wilce Pearcy and Dorothy Wilce Krause , along with many grandchildren , amongst whom are the nationally known sports and outdoors photographer Anne Krause ( 1952 – 2006 ) and James M . " Jim " Wilce , Jr . , a linguistic anthropologist at Northern Arizona University .