Joe Rossi Hall of Fame

Hall of Fame Inductee Frank Prentup – Boulder A full-blooded Tuscarara Iroquois, Frank “Chief” Prentup was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Lafayette F. Printup and Augusta M. Printup in 1907. His last name was spelled incorrectly as a result of a birth certificate typo. Frank graduated from Junction City (Kansas) High School in 1926 and attended Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science (now KSU) in Manhattan, Kansas, where he received bachelor and masters’ degrees in physical education. While at KSC, he lettered in three sports -- football (quarterback), baseball (2nd baseman) and swimming. Frank went on to coach a number of sports in the Kansas High School system from 1932-40. He was so well liked that faculty, staff & students at Manhattan High School, they initiated, voted for and enacted the high school’s mascot name change from the Manhattan Blues to the Manhattan Indians, which remains to this day. Frank went on to become an assistant football, baseball and basketball coach at the University of Colorado from 1941 to 1943 before joining the United States Navy in 1943, serving as a training officer in the Naval Flight School in the Norfolk, Virginia, area until his discharge from active duty in 1945. He returned to Boulder and resumed his coaching career as an assistant football coach, assistant baseball coach, and a physical education associate professor. In 1947, Frank was named head baseball coach at CU and remained as an assistant in football. He spent the next 22 years running the baseball program before retiring in 1969 with a record of 257-255-2. His 1946 team was a Big 7 Conference co-champion and his 1961 team was third in the Big 8 Conference. Frank received the Meritorious Service Award from the American Baseball Coaches Association in 1986 at their annual convention in New Orleans. Prentup Field was built in 1967 on CU’s east campus and is named in his honor. When built, it was the best baseball facility in the Big 8 Conference (it is now the women’s soccer field as CU does not support a baseball program). Frank was inducted into the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015. Among his other achievements, he co-authored the “Scientific Techniques of Batting” with Robert H. Pomeroy in 1973, authored “Punching the Light Bag” for hand/eye coordination (for both men and women) in 1985 and was one of the original developers of rope skipping (for fun and fitness) as an athletic agility and stamina program for all sports. Developed an accredited PE class for same at CU (for men and women), and authored a short book on the subject, “Skipping the Rope for Fun and Fitness” in 1963.