Upper Iowa University Athletics Hall of Fame
Fred "Zebe" Larson is a 1927 graduate of Upper Iowa, he played his first baseball in his hometown of Clermont, Iowa and he was the pitching half of perhaps the most famous battery in Peacock baseball history. Teamed with the late Chuck Sullivan, also part of the class of 1927 and from Clermont. They were stars of some of Doc Dorman’s best clubs in the year from 1923 to 1927. After College baseball, he played with Marshalltown in the pioneer Mississippi Valley League, one of the toughest minor leagues in the history of organized ball. He concluded his playing days as a member of the touring House of David baseball team in 1936.
Larson installed baseball at Garwin and then put the sport in the program at the high school in Nora Springs in 1930. In 1943, he became coach at West Waterloo in Waterloo, IA where he also started the sport. Thus, he was the only baseball coach the school had until his retirement in 1069. Nine of his players signed pro baseball contracts and Nineteen played as regulars on College Clubs. He coached Waterloo’s first State Basketball Championship team.
Two of his sons, Loren class of 1961 and Lee class of 1967, followed their father in the coaching ranks; the former was a pitcher for Upper Iowa during his college days, thus completing the baseball cycle of father and son at UIU.
He received West Waterloo High School’s Baseball Plaque; the Iowa High School Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970; the Iowa High School Plaque for forty one years of coaching in 1973; and the Black Hawk county Sports Hall of Fame by the Sports of Sorts, Waterloo in 1974.
