Wabash College Athletics

David A. Phillips, it’s hard to imagine that you were not an exemplary high school wrestler in your native Los Angeles since you’ve been a mainstay with the Wabash wrestling program for more than a quarter century. Instead, you did the thankless job of managing three sports—football, track, and cross country—for Woodrow Wilson High School. After earning your Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Washington, you arrived on the faculty at Wabash College in 1968. Your vita lists dozens of articles, lectures, posters, and publications. It does not do justice for what you have meant, and continue to mean, to Wabash College. You have served on the College’s most important committees, and chaired the Minority Concerns Committee from 1983 to 1985.

You were a key member of the advisory board of the highly successful Wabash Executive Program, and you developed the chemistry program for the Wabash Bridge Program. But your induction into the Athletics Hall of Fame is due to your devotion to the Wabash athletics department. For more than 30 years, Wrestling Coach Max Servies could count on you to time home wrestling matches and tournaments. You were mat-side during Wabash’s legendary win over Notre Dame, were a part of two undefeated seasons, and timed literally dozens of Little State championship matches. Coach Rob Johnson has often called on you to serve in a similar capacity at track and cross country meets.

You are Wabash’s resident Monon Bell encyclopedia, and you served as Wabash’s Faculty Athletics Representative to the NCAA for almost six years. Beyond the obvious accomplishments, you have always been keenly devoted to the Wabash student-athlete. Indeed, you have shown generations of Wabash athletes the tough love that made them better students, better athletes, and better men.

For a lifetime devoted to Wabash and volunteerism to the athletics department, the National Association of Wabash Men is proud to induct you, David H. Phillips, in the Wabash College Athletics Hall of Fame.