Edward Niehl, a former Cougar football player and longtime high school coach and athletic director, turned 100 on March 5.
Niehl (’51 Phys. Ed., ’54 Ed.) spent his entire career in the Bethel School District in Puyallup—from a woodshop and mechanical drawing teacher to physical education teacher and head football coach. He also served as head baseball coach, assistant basketball coach, and recreation director, ending his career at the district as the athletic director.
On December 4, 1981, the Bethel High School gymnasium was dedicated in his honor.
Highlights from his football coaching career include a team that went undefeated and unscored upon for the 1955 season and another in 1958 that finished the season as number one in the state.
“I enjoy watching kids play, but many times I think parents push kids too hard,” Niehl told Bethel’s Brave Talk in March 2001. “I hear so much talk about kids not learning enough, but they know so many more things than we knew at that age. … Elementary students should be playing instead of being bogged down with homework. That is where the real lessons are learned.”
Niehl was born March 5, 1924, in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Burien and attended Highline High School, where he played varsity football and basketball. He was also a pole-vaulter on the track team. In 1945, his senior year, he quit high school after basketball season to enlist in the US Army.
He attended Washington State College, playing in most football games until a back injury his senior year. Niehl and his wife, Edith, lived in a refurbished boxcar in Pullman. They married in 1949 and had two sons: Bob Niehl (’75 Phys. Ed., ’83 MS Phys. Ed.) and David Niehl (’78 Phys. Ed.). Both played basketball for the Cougs. Bob Niehl also did the high jump on the WSU track team.
Daughter-in-law Trish (Nagel) Niehl (’79, ’80 MA Speech & Hearing Sci.) grew up in Pullman, where her dad, the late Charles “Chas” W. Nagel, taught food science and viticulture. She reports that Niehl’s “mind is sharp, and he works out with Bob two days a week. Going strong at 100!”