"Dusty" Kline - Boise Junior College's 1st football coach

[Bronco754]

Whatever became of the very first head football coach at what is now known as Boise State University - back when Boise State Junior College first fielded a football team in 1933?

His first name is listed as Donald on some websites and Morris on other websites. "Dusty" Kline in addition to coaching B.J.C. for only one season in 1933 was also known to have been the head football coach at Rupert High School in 1929. It is also known that he was the Tennis coach as well as the football coach at B.J.C.

With genealogy being a major hobby of mine I tried to find a record of him on both the 1930 and the 1940 census records. There was NOBODY named Donald or Dusty Kline recorded as a resident of the State of Idaho in 1930 or 1940 other than a Donald Lee Kline who was born in 1933 in Canyon County, Idaho (who obviously could not have been a football coach in 1929 and 1933). There was a Morris W. Kline who was born about 1902 in New Jersey who had a wife named Camille. They had two sons named Lawrence M. Kline, age four, born in Oregon, and Michael S. Kline, age one, born in Idaho. But whether this was the man who 11 years earlier was the head football coach at Rupert H.S. and 7 years earlier was the head football and tennis coach at Boise Junior College in 1933 I do not know.

During his one year as the head football coach at Boise Junior College "Dusty" Kline's record was 1-2-1 with the first game being a 6-0 loss to St. Joseph's College - which I ASSUME was the forerunner of what is now St. Joseph's Catholic Elementary school location at 825 W. Fort Street in Boise.

10/12/1933 Dusty Kline St. Joseph's College Boise, ID 00 - 06 L
11/9/1933 Dusty Kline College of Idaho, frosh Caldwell, ID 25 - 06 W
11/18/1933 Dusty Kline So. Idaho College of Ed. Boise, ID 06 - 07 L
11/30/1933 Dusty Kline St. Joseph's College Boise, ID 00 - 00 T

If anyone has any FACTUAL information on who "Dusty" Kline was and where he came from and what became of him I'd love to hear from you.

 

[Bronco754]

It APPEARS (to me) that the Morris W. Kline who was recorded as having been born about 1902 in New Jersey WAS the same person as the 1929 football coach at Rupert H.S. and the 1933 head football coach at Boise Junior College. I write that here because I found the obituary of one of the two sons of this Morris W. Kline online here:

Obituary for Dusty Kline

Here his son, Lawrence M. "Dusty" Kline, was recorded as having been the son of a football coach named Morris William "Dusty" Kline who was the football coach for Jerry Kramer at Sandpoint High School when Lawrence was a Freshman and Sophomore in H.S.

According to a Family Tree found via the Family Search website Morris William Kline was born in January of 1898 in New Jersey and he died Sep. 12, 1966, in Portland, Oregon. So his 1940 census record was "off" by about 4 years regarding his estimated year of birth.

 

[Bronco754]

Morris W. "Dusty" Kline was also recorded as a football player for the University of Idaho in the Vandals 1925 yearbook (as a player who could not play the previous fall (1924) because he had exhausted his eligibility prior to 1924.

https://issuu.com/uidahodigital/docs/gem1925

Which is odd because he was recorded incorrectly as "Maurice" W. Kline in the home of his parents on the 1920 census of Plainfield, Union County, N.J. I have to wonder how he exhausted his eligibility to play football between the time his 1920 census record was taken on January 5, 1920, and prior to the 1924 University of Idaho football season. I say that because true freshmen were not (as I understand it) not allowed to play in their first year in college in those days. So at most he could have played only three seasons (1921, 1922 and 1923).