Robert S. "Bob" Irwin was born in Elkins, West Virginia, on September 27, 1925, and died on August 15, 2001. He earned 2nd Team All State football honors at guard in 1941, 1st Team All State football honors at guard in 1942, and 2nd Team All State basketball honors in 1942, then graduated from Elkins High School in 1943. He was a member of the United States Marine Corp from 1943 to 1946 and served during WW II in the Philippine Campaign. He attended Davis and Elkins College from 1946 to 1949, graduated in 1949, starred on the Senators' first postwar football team, made the All Conference Eleven all three years, served as team captain in his senior year, and was voted by the student body as the most outstanding D and E senior in 1949. In 1974 he was named to the 50th anniversary all time West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference football team, and in 1978 he was inducted into the Davis and Elkins College Athletic Hall of Fame. He served as assistant coach to Frank C. Wimer at Elkins High School from 1949 to 1954 and then coached there for 20 years from 1954 to 1974. His coaching records were 70 wins and 50 losses in football from 1954 to 1967, with 11 Big Ten titles; 82 wins and 18 losses in wrestling from 1958 to 1967, where he helped start wrestling at Elkins High School and produced four individual state champions; 105 wins and 56 losses in basketball from 1965 to 1973, with the Big 10 conference championship in 1967; and 161 wins and 30 losses in track from 1954 to 1974, with 11 Big 10 titles, including five in consecutive years from 1969 to 1974, seven unbeaten seasons, and Big 10 track Coach of the Year honors in 1974. He developed many All-State and outstanding college athletes, was voted Teacher of the Year at Elkins High School in 1978, was nominated for Teacher of the Year in 1979 for the state of West Virginia, and was inducted into the first class of the Randolph County Athletic Hall of Fame on August 17, 1991.