PHS Athletic History--Coach William “Bill” Rohr
Old-time Trojan fans will remember the name of Bill Rohr, who coached PHS basketball for five years just after World War II (1946-1951). You may enjoy this trip down Memory Lane with me remembering Coach Rohr.
William D. Rohr was born in Massillon, Ohio, in 1918. He was a star athlete at Massillon’s Washington High School and graduated from there in the class of 1936. Rohr made his name in basketball as an All- Ohioan and played under the coaching of the legendary Paul Brown, who coached both the Tiger’s football and basketball teams. Brown said that Bill Rohr was the best basketball player he ever coached.
He attended Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, where he was an All- Buckeye Conference guard. After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan in 1940, Rohr returned to Massillon to begin his coaching experience with his mentor Paul Brown. He then returned to Ohio Wesleyan for a brief coaching stint before he entered the Army Air Corps in 1942. After the war was over, in 1946, Rohr took the head basketball coaching position at Portsmouth High School. In his five seasons at PHS, Coach Rohr led the Trojan round-ballers to an 82-29 record and captured three district titles along the way.
Rohr went from PHS to Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, in September of 1951. He was an immediate success there and his Redskins won 91 and lost 47 games in six seasons. During his tenure at Miami the Redskins won four Mid-American Conference championships.
In 1957 Coach Rohr moved up to the Big Ten Conference as head basketball coach of the Northwestern University Wildcats in Evanston, Illinois. From 1957 to 1962 his teams compiled a 66-58 record. An interesting sidebar to Rohr’s Northwestern job was that he took Bob Doll (PHS ‘50) along with him as an assistant coach. Doll was a Miami standout from 1951 to 1954 who played for Rohr at PHS and followed his high school coach to Miami.
In 1962 he assumed the post as Director of Athletics and Physical Education at Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, which he held for 15 years, retiring in 1978. During the 1975-1976 school year, Bill Rohr was President of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and was viewed by many as a pioneer in women’s college athletics.
After Bill retired as Athletic Director of Ohio University in 1978, he and his wife, Mary Ellen, moved to Oxford, Ohio. Coach Rohr passed away in Oxford in 1986 at the age of 68. He had one son and two daughters. He is enshrined in the following Collegiate Halls of Fame: Ohio Wesleyan University, Miami University, and Ohio University.
Blaine Bierley (PHS ’55)
