Father Logan, 101, known as "Coach" at Seattle U.

By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter

BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 1996 The Rev. Francis Logan cheers a two-run homer by Edgar Martinez at a Seattle Mariners game in 1996.

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For some eight decades, the Rev. Francis A. Logan was a familiar presence at Seattle University.

Even after retiring from teaching and coaching, the lanky, 6-foot-2 Jesuit priest took his daily walk on campus, stopping to chat with those who said hello.

"Every university has some sort of person that everybody knows, a friendly person who talks to people," said the Rev. Stephen Sundborg, a Jesuit and president of Seattle University. "Father Logan was that for years and years."

The Rev. Logan died yesterday at the Jesuit infirmary at Gonzaga University in Spokane. He was five days shy of his 102nd birthday.

The Rev. Logan was born, the third of eight children, to Frank and Brigid Logan of Seattle. He began his association with Seattle University — then called Seattle College — in 1916, when he entered high school there.

He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1919 and was ordained a priest in 1933. Shortly after, the Rev. Logan returned to Seattle to serve as principal of Seattle Preparatory School and then served at St. Leo parish in Tacoma, Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, and St. Jude Thaddeus parish in Havre, Mont. Eventually, he returned to Seattle College, where he remained until his retirement in 1970.

At the college, renamed Seattle University in the 1940s, the Rev. Logan taught French, English, Spanish, theology and nursing ethics. But he was better known for his athletic involvement, and people on campus called him "Coach."

The Rev. Logan coached baseball, basketball and handball. He founded a bowling team, known as the Holy Rollers, and a hiking club, which has continued for 65 years. He loved baseball, attending spring training in Arizona nine times after his retirement.

In 1996, Seattle University dedicated its new soccer field as Logan Field in his honor.

A champion handball player, the Rev. Logan also was inducted into the Washington Athletic Club Handball Hall of Fame. When former Seattle Archbishop Thomas Connolly expressed disapproval that one of his priests played competitive handball, the Rev. Logan simply continued playing under the pseudonym Ed Beasley, said the Rev. Peter Ely, a Jesuit and rector of the Jesuit community at Seattle U.

The Rev. Logan also liked to travel, leading European tours for Seattle University students and friends, working as chaplain on Alaskan cruise ships during the summers, and touring the United States by Greyhound bus.

But the Rev. Logan perhaps may be best remembered simply for his kind, upbeat personality.

"He had an ability to laugh at himself, which is a great quality," Ely said.

"He was not a professorial kind of person," Sundborg said. "He was kind of the glue or the connecting point. He was easy to approach, always had a big smile, didn't take things too seriously."

The Rev. Logan represents "the tremendous loyalty of the old-timers of Seattle University," Sundborg said. "He's like the history of the university [embodied] in a very warm man. We'll miss him."

A funeral service will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday at St. Aloysius Church, 330 E. Boone Ave. in Spokane. Donations in memory of the Rev. Logan may be sent to the Jesuit Senior Fund, P.O. Box 86010, Portland, OR 97286.