Jorgensen’s Legacy Ties ECU & BYU, Offers Homecoming Memories
October 18, 2017 | General
By Joe Corley
ECUPirates.com
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ECUPirates.com
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Among the visitors in town for the ECU football team's homecoming game against BYU on Saturday at Bagwell Field in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium will be about 70 descendants and family friends of the man who was the school's first athletics director.
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Like they were two years ago when the Pirates played at BYU in Provo, most of them will be cheering for ECU, although there are numerous family connections to BYU and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well.
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The first time he set foot on campus back in 1947, Dr. Nephi Moroni Jorgensen probably never could've imagined the changes the school then known as East Carolina Teachers College would undergo in the next 70 years.
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The college had fewer than 2,000 students, and the town itself had a population of about 15,000. The campus, of course, looked vastly different. The football team still played in College Stadium, on main campus near the current location of the Brewster Building. Not only was there no Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, the Christenbury Memorial Gymnasium was still five years away from being built.
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But in 1947, ECTC entered into its first conference affiliation, the North State Intercollegiate Conference. Because of the added administrative responsibilities associated with being in a conference, Dr. John Messick, who had just taken over as the fifth president of the school, decided ECTC needed its first athletics director.
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The search led Messick to Jorgensen, who had grown up in Idaho, played football and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education at Utah State, and then secured a master's from Oregon and a Ph.D. from Iowa State. Jorgensen, a Mormon, left his post at Vallejo College in California and moved to the Bible Belt, where he liked it so much that he stayed for the rest of his life.
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He was the AD from 1947 to 1963 before being succeeded by Clarence Stasavich. Jorgensen stayed on as head of the health and physical education department until retiring in 1975. He was inducted into the ECU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1974, with his plaque partially reading that he "believed that the major emphasis on athletics and coaching should be instrumental in educating participants in moral and ethical values inherent in the program."
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He and his wife, Martha Jane Green Jorgensen, raised seven children in Greenville. They also were instrumental in establishing a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Greenville.
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All their children attended East Carolina College or ECU at some point. Five graduated from the school, and two others graduated from BYU. Several of his grandchildren also attended ECU, and from 1947 to 1997 there was at least one Jorgensen family member at the school as a student or faculty member every year.
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Many of those children and grandchildren — and great-grandchildren and friends, too — will be in attendance Saturday, making the trip from Texas, Utah, Florida and Maryland.
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"We're going to have a ball," said Lynn Jorgensen, the second oldest of Nephi and Martha's four sons, behind Larry and ahead of Layne and Mark. "There will be a lot of purple and gold from us, more so than BYU."
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Nephi Jorgensen died in 1988 in Greenville, and his wife passed away last year, three days after her 100th birthday, in Utah, where she had moved in 1993. Their oldest son, Larry, died two years ago in Jacksonville, where he was a dentist. Another son, Layne, is unable to fly and therefore cannot make the trip from Texas.
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Lynn will be in town, along with Mark and their sisters Janis Gerhart, Karen Fox and Eva Kendrick. Layne, who will be watching on TV from home, remembers well growing up in Greenville.
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"We had the best of childhoods," he said. "We'd go swimming in some of those outdoor ponds that they had back then. The university and the whole area have changed quite a bit since then."
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Layne was the only one in the family to follow in his father's footsteps. He earned a degree in physical education and eventually became a university department chair.
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"I was always trailing my dad at East Carolina," Layne said. "He'd take me over there on Saturdays as he was going about his normal activities. He was also in charge of concessions. We'd pop popcorn and set up concessions for football and basketball. Back then, dad's job wasn't as big a job as being an AD today.
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"We kind of had a run of the facilities to a certain extent. It was just a different era. I just enjoyed being around dad and all the coaches."
Â
Like they were two years ago when the Pirates played at BYU in Provo, most of them will be cheering for ECU, although there are numerous family connections to BYU and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well.
Â
The first time he set foot on campus back in 1947, Dr. Nephi Moroni Jorgensen probably never could've imagined the changes the school then known as East Carolina Teachers College would undergo in the next 70 years.
Â
The college had fewer than 2,000 students, and the town itself had a population of about 15,000. The campus, of course, looked vastly different. The football team still played in College Stadium, on main campus near the current location of the Brewster Building. Not only was there no Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, the Christenbury Memorial Gymnasium was still five years away from being built.
Â
But in 1947, ECTC entered into its first conference affiliation, the North State Intercollegiate Conference. Because of the added administrative responsibilities associated with being in a conference, Dr. John Messick, who had just taken over as the fifth president of the school, decided ECTC needed its first athletics director.
Â
The search led Messick to Jorgensen, who had grown up in Idaho, played football and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education at Utah State, and then secured a master's from Oregon and a Ph.D. from Iowa State. Jorgensen, a Mormon, left his post at Vallejo College in California and moved to the Bible Belt, where he liked it so much that he stayed for the rest of his life.
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He was the AD from 1947 to 1963 before being succeeded by Clarence Stasavich. Jorgensen stayed on as head of the health and physical education department until retiring in 1975. He was inducted into the ECU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1974, with his plaque partially reading that he "believed that the major emphasis on athletics and coaching should be instrumental in educating participants in moral and ethical values inherent in the program."
Â
He and his wife, Martha Jane Green Jorgensen, raised seven children in Greenville. They also were instrumental in establishing a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Greenville.
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All their children attended East Carolina College or ECU at some point. Five graduated from the school, and two others graduated from BYU. Several of his grandchildren also attended ECU, and from 1947 to 1997 there was at least one Jorgensen family member at the school as a student or faculty member every year.
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Many of those children and grandchildren — and great-grandchildren and friends, too — will be in attendance Saturday, making the trip from Texas, Utah, Florida and Maryland.
Â
"We're going to have a ball," said Lynn Jorgensen, the second oldest of Nephi and Martha's four sons, behind Larry and ahead of Layne and Mark. "There will be a lot of purple and gold from us, more so than BYU."
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Nephi Jorgensen died in 1988 in Greenville, and his wife passed away last year, three days after her 100th birthday, in Utah, where she had moved in 1993. Their oldest son, Larry, died two years ago in Jacksonville, where he was a dentist. Another son, Layne, is unable to fly and therefore cannot make the trip from Texas.
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Lynn will be in town, along with Mark and their sisters Janis Gerhart, Karen Fox and Eva Kendrick. Layne, who will be watching on TV from home, remembers well growing up in Greenville.
Â
"We had the best of childhoods," he said. "We'd go swimming in some of those outdoor ponds that they had back then. The university and the whole area have changed quite a bit since then."
Â
Layne was the only one in the family to follow in his father's footsteps. He earned a degree in physical education and eventually became a university department chair.
Â
"I was always trailing my dad at East Carolina," Layne said. "He'd take me over there on Saturdays as he was going about his normal activities. He was also in charge of concessions. We'd pop popcorn and set up concessions for football and basketball. Back then, dad's job wasn't as big a job as being an AD today.
Â
"We kind of had a run of the facilities to a certain extent. It was just a different era. I just enjoyed being around dad and all the coaches."
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