Bob Svob, University of Arizona football standout in the late '30s and early '40s, would go on to become the UA's dean of students.
Bob Svob, a University of Arizona football player, coach and administrator who may have spent more time on campus that any other man in history, died Thursday, August 31, in Tucson. He was 98.
Svob spent 44 years at the UA. He led the university's intramural sports program for 16 years, served as an assistant football coach for two and was an assistant athletic director for seven. Svob was the UA’s dean of men from 1966-72. He was then promoted to dean of students, a position he held until retiring in 1983.
Svob dealt with everything from anti-war protestors to pranks, he told the Star’s Bonnie Henry in 2004.
“I was responsible for booting off my own fraternity, Sigma Chi — twice,†he said.
Football brought Svob to Tucson from Jerome in 1937. One of nine children born to copper miner Ignac Svob and his wife Maria, Bob had been a Jerome High School football star. He made Ripley’s Believe it or Not when, in 1936, one of his punts went 300 yards.
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"Remember, Jerome is built on a hill," he told Henry. "The ball just kept rolling."
Svob lettered at the UA from 1938-40, eventually earning an undergraduate degree in physical education. He returned after serving in World War II to get a master’s degree in administration.
Svob was never far from Arizona Stadium. He was inducted in the UA athletic department’s hall of fame in 1985 and the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. He was a dedicated philanthropist and a deacon and elder at St. Marks’ Presbyterian Church.
Svob was preceded in death by his wife Shirley, who he met and married while at the UA. Their four children all attended the university.
