Whitman College Athletics

Frank Dement was a tall, agile athlete who entered Whitman in the 1915-16 school year and was immediately a star on that fall’s football team and an all-conference center for the basketball team that winter and the next.

With the onset of America’s participation in World War I, the College dropped athletics in April 1917 and Dement subsequently signed up for military service. His return to Whitman for his senior year turned around a basketball program that had struggled through lean seasons in 1918 and 1919. The team opened with a loss to Oregon but downed Willamette to initiate a storybook campaign led by Dement.

The Missionaries improved with each outing, rolling through the season and dropping just one more game, during which Dement didn’t participate, on their way to winning the Northwest Conference championship. Dement was named all-conference for the third time and was viewed as one of the best centers on the West Coast.

Dement’s talents were also evident away from the hardwood as he was one of the stalwarts on the track team, scoring four of the team’s five points at the conference championship meet to close out his Whitman athletic career. 

He was appointed the College’s track coach the following year.