FROSTY COX
COX, FORREST 'FROSTY'
Hometown: Newton, KS
| CATEGORY | TOTAL | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | |
| YEAR | So.* | Jr.* | Sr.* | ||
| POSITION | G | G | G | ||
| HEIGHT | |||||
| WEIGHT | |||||
| JERSEY | #20 | #20 | #20 | ||
| Games Played/Started | 54/ | 18/ | 18/ | 18/ | |
| Points | 193 | 65 | 62 | 66 | |
| Per Game | 3.6 | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.7 |
* Lettered
1929: Starter, Honor Captain
1930: Starter, All Big 6, All-American
1931: Starter, All Big 6
1934: Asst Coach at KU
Lettered in football '28-'30 Fullback and Halfback (All Big 6 '30)
Coaching Record: Colorado (36-42, 45-50) 13 yrs: 147-89
Montana (56-62) 7 yrs: 80-94
FORREST B. 'FROSTY' COX (Player 1929-31, Asst.
Coach 1934)
Frosty Cox was born in 1907 in Newton, Kansas, and became a two-sport star at
Kansas. He earned three letters in football as a Fullback and Halfback, gaining
All-Big 6 honors in 1930. In basketball, he earned three more letters. He
captained the Jayhawks as a sophomore guard in 1929, then won All-Big Six honors
as a guard in both 1930 and ’31, leading the Jayhawks to the conference title in
1931. He was named All-American in 1930.
During the 1934 season, he served as an assistant coach under head coach Phog Allen. That experience helped him land the head coaching position at Colorado University, where he made the Buffaloes one of the nation’s leading teams of the West in the 30s and 40s. In the 13 seasons from 1936 through 1950, he compiled a 147-89 record, winning four conference titles, reaching the NIT national championship game in 1938 and winning the NIT title in 1940. In 1942, the Buffaloes won the Rocky Mountain Conference and then beat KU in the opening round of the Western NCAA playoffs.
As he lined up the team at the beginning of each season, he warned “You’ve all heard the old saying, ‘It isn’t who wins or loses, it’s how you play the game’.” Pausing, he looked each of them squarely in the eye. “That’s bullshit!” he would bellow.
He was instrumental in having Colorado join the Big 6, making it the Big 7 in 1948. In 1949 he published Basketball Outline, and left Colorado after the 1950 season, to enter the cattle-raising business in Kansas. In 1956, he resumed his basketball career taking the head coaching job at Montana University. He wasn’t as successful with the Grizzlies, though, compiling an 80-95 record in his seven seasons there before retirement.
He was named to the Helms Hall of Fame and died in 1961 in Missoula, Montana.
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