Sport(s) Football 1934–1936 Chicago Cardinals 1936 Brooklyn Dodgers | 1931–1933 Washington State Name Phil Sarboe 1934 Boston Redskins Role American football player | |
Born August 22, 1911
Fairbanks, Alaska ( 1911-08-22 ) Died November 19, 1985, Spokane, Washington, United States Education Washington State University Positions Defensive back, Quarterback, Running back | ||
Alma mater Washington State, 1934 | ||
Phillip John Sarboe (August 22, 1911 – November 19, 1985) was an American football player and coach. He was the head coach for five seasons at Washington State College in the late 1940s, and later for over a decade at Humboldt State College.
Contents
Early years
Born in Fairbanks, Alaska, Sarboe graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington, and was a three-sport athlete in the Pacific Coast Conference at Washington State College in Pullman. On a basketball scholarship, he also played shortstop in baseball and had his greatest success in football, most notably as a fullback. He played in the East–West Shrine Game in January 1934. Although he had minor league offers in baseball, he chose to play professional football.
Professional career
Sarboe played three seasons in the National Football League, starting with Boston Redskins in 1934. Listed at 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) and 167 lb (76 kg), he was traded that season to the Chicago Cardinals, and finished his pro career in 1936 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He completed only 42.3 percent of his passes for just 1,133 yards, had a 4–26 career touchdown to interception ratio, and a career passer rating of 27.9.
Coaching
Sarboe began his coaching career in 1937 in southeastern Washington at Clarkston High School, then moved west to Aberdeen in 1939. In 1941 and 1942, he coached football at Central Washington College of Education in Ellensburg, compiling a 6–6–3 record. The 1942 team was 4–1–1 in the Washington Intercollegiate Conference and won the season title.
The program was suspended after the 1942 season due to World War II, and Sarboe coached in Tacoma at Lincoln High School, his alma mater. He had planned to return to Ellensburg to coach the high school team in 1945 and then return to Central Washington when it resumed football in 1946.
Babe Hollingbery, the Cougars' head coach since 1926, was not brought back in 1945 and Sarboe was hired as head coach of the Cougars in late May, the first alumnus to head the football program. In his first season in Pullman in 1945, Washington State posted a 6–2–1 record, but struggled afterward and Sarboe had a 17–26–3 (.402) record in five seasons.
Sarboe coached a season at North Central High School in Spokane in 1950, then went to Humboldt State College in Arcata, California, where he compiled a record of 104–37–5 (.729) in fifteen seasons. In 1966, he left to coach for a season at Hawaii and posted a 4–6 record. Sarboe then returned to northwest California and became a coach and athletic director at the College of the Redwoods, a junior college in Eureka, and retired in 1977.
Death
Sarboe died of cancer in 1985 at age 73 in Spokane.