Services Set For Former Football Coach Art Dufelmeier

MACOMB, Ill. – Services for former Western Illinois University Leathernecks Head Football Coach Arthur J. Dufelmeier will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, Feb. 8 at the First United Methodist Church in Havana. Visitation will be held at the Hurley Funeral Home in Havana from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7. Dufelmeier, 86, of Havana passed away Thursday, Feb. 4, in Havana.

He served as the assistant head football coach at Western from 1949-1960, and served as the Leathernecks' head coach from 1960-1968 posting a 37-39-2 record. He also coached tennis and taught PE classes until he retired in 1969. After Western, Dufelmeier had a 17-year stint as the Havana High School head coach. Along with coaching at these schools, he was a lifelong educator.

Dufelmeier graduated from Beardstown High School and attended the University of Illinois on a basketball scholarship. He left the University of Illinois in 1943 to serve his country during World War II, and was a prisoner of war for 11 months. He was liberated on May 2, 1945. He returned to college five months later and was elected captain of the football team that won the Big 10 and beat UCLA in the 1947 Rose Bowl. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and his master's degree from Western.

He was a member of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Macomb, the American Legion and Havana VFW Post 6408.

Dufelmeier is survived by a son, four daughters; eight grandchildren; four stepgrandchildren; one great-grandson; six stepgreat-grandchildren; one brother and one sister.

Online memorial messages may be left for the family at www.hurleyfh.com.

Press release courtesy of Darcie Shinberger, University Relations

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