April 14, 2006
William "Dutch" Fehring, one of Stanford's all-time great coaches, passed away last night at Stanford Hospital. He was 93 years old.
Fehring holds the distinction of being the only person in Stanford history to coach a Stanford team in the Rose Bowl and the College World Series. Although he was an assistant football coach for 17 years (1949-66), Fehring was best known for being Stanford's head baseball coach for 12 seasons, from 1956-67.
Fehring was an assistant coach on Chuck Taylor's staff in 1951 when Stanford played Illinois in the 1952 Rose Bowl.
Fehring led Stanford to 11 winning seasons in his 12-year tenure as head baseball coach on The Farm. He led Stanford to the College World Series in 1967, setting school records for most wins in a season (36) and best winning percentage (.849, 36-6-1). By the time he retired from coaching in 1967 (after guiding the `67 squad to a third-place finish at the CWS), Fehring had amassed 290 wins and was the winningest baseball coach in Stanford history.
Born in Columbus, Indiana, and a nine-time letterman in football, basketball and baseball at Purdue University, Fehring was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame and both the Indiana Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame. He was also a member of the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame.