Year Inducted: 2008 (p)
Nominated By: John Sabo III
Sports Competed In: Football, Track
Athlete, Coach or Contributor: Athlete, Coach, Official
Before High School:
Swimming participant for the Steel City Y for three years (1935-37).
High School
Attended Pueblo Central, graduating in 1943...Played four years of football (1939-42) at quarterback and was the first freshman to ever start for the Wildcats...Recorded six touchdowns in his high school career (one 1940; one in 1941; four in 1942)...Plese was also a three-year member of the track team as a sprinter (1940-43).
College:
Went to Duquesne University for a year in 1943 where he was the football team's quarterback....Drafted into the Army in 1944...After military stint, Dr. Plese returned to college at Pueblo Junior College where he played quarterback and was selected to the Colorado Junior College Conference (CJCC) All-Conference team in 1947...Dr. Plese worked on his post-graduate studies at Ohio State University (1965-1967)...Elliott received his PhD for his thesis in research and developing methods for use of television and video as an instructional tool in the field of health and exercise science...He was one of the first, if not the first to research such methods in Health and Exercise Science.
Coaching:
Began his coaching career in football as the head coach for one season at Pueblo Catholic H.S., in 1948 where his team went 3-5-1 and scored 103 points while giving up 113...He did a four-year (1949-53) stint as an assistant on the football, swimming and track teams at Colorado A&M then returned to coach Pueblo Junior College (PJC) for four years (1953-56) as an assistant on both the football and basketball teams... While an assistant with the PJC football, the teams posted season records of: 2-6-0 (1953); 6-3-0 (1954); 5-4-0 (1955) and 3-4-1 in 1956...Elliott moved on to Ft. Collins, CO where he was an assistant coach on the Rams' swimming team and freshman football squad for four years (1956-61).
Related Activities:
Dr. Plese Research Professor CSU 1967-1989 (22 years)...Elliott developed the first marketable drink used by athletic departments as a fluid and electrolyte replenishment...The drink was named "VITALYTES" and contained the necessary vitamins and minerals to replace those exhausted by athletics...His drink was used by the astronauts...Until the Fifth Avenue marketers took "Gatorade" under their wings, Vitalytes was a staple for most athletic departments...Elliott developed the techniques for "High Intensity Training"...He was instrumental in research which produced the evolution of the Nautilus weight training machines...He supervised "The Colorado Experiment" at his CSU Exercise Physiology Lab, which developed new methods for strength conditioning, including the idea that "negative work", that is slowly providing resistance as the weight is lowered, was one of the most important factors in increasing muscle strength and mass, and that steroids are not neither necessary nor desirable for such increase in strength mass....Elliott kept his hand in the football program by using the techniques he developed in the classroom to become the video-photographer for the football team home and away games...In honor of his achievements at CSU [Ft. Collins] and development of the video techniques fort he football team, the top room of Hughes Stadium press box was named the "Elliott R. Plese Photography Room”.
Occupation:
Dr. Plese was a coach and researcher.
Personal:
Elliott was married to Katharine Kilfoy Plese... He passed away on December 7, 2002 at age 77.
