I think only 1. Mike Cox (serious).
Another poster said "30" was to honr the "Dirty Thirty" of 1959. Previously, I thought it was for Mike Cox too. Can someone clarify?
Sorry I'm late. The Kagavi BATSIGNAL needed the lightbulbs changed. Was funny seeing this, since this tidbit is actually buried in a story I'm working on...
Yes, ISU has retired only the number 30. KIND OF. You won't see much mention of it anywhere really, since it was essentially a unilateral move by Coach Clay Stapleton that has been mostly forgotten over the years. Stapleton retired Mike Cox's 30 in 1964, and Cox was a solid player who was All-Big 8 his senior year, but he wasn't even the best player on his own team. Hardly an obvious choice for this honor. From my ongoing rough draft:
In a March 1983 article in the Lawrence Journal-World, columnist Chuck Woodling interviewed former Cyclone sports information director Harry Burrell to find out just how this honor came about. Burrell could only shrug in bafflement, "There's only one person who really knows, and that's Clay Stapleton. He was the coach then, and Cox typified what Stapleton thought was the ideal hard-nosed football player."
Additionally, it is correct that 28 has unofficially been removed from circulation since the Davis brothers roamed the fields. But Jack Trice's 37 lives on and Vic Holmes currently has it on the ISU roster.