Neihouse named to 2020 Class of Osborn County Hall of Fame
The following story is republished with permission from the Osborne County Hall of Fame. The story appeared on the hall of fame's website on Dec. 2, 2020.
Longtime teacher/coach Jim Neihouse is considered to be one of the greatest long distance runners in Kansas high school history; he did pretty well in the sport in college, too. Among the many accolades accorded him in his lifetime he can now add being selected to the Osborne County Hall of Fame.
James Edward Neihouse was born May 2, 1949 in Salina, Kansas, the twelfth child of eleven sisters and one brother born to John Bernard Neihouse and Inez Ella Foulke. Jim grew up in Salina and attended Sacred Heart High School.
Jim played four years of basketball for the Knights. He led Sacred Heart in scoring with 361 points for the season, with an average of nearly 20 points a contest, and paced the rebounding with 259. He hit 43 percent of his field attempts and 62 percent of his free throws. In 1967 he was named to the Topeka Daily Capital newspaper’s Class A All-State High School Basketball Team.
In the fall of 1966 Jim became the Class A boys cross country state champion. That winter he was the indoor state champion in both the 440-yard (quarter mile) and 880-yard (half mile) runs, helping the Sacred Heart Knights boys track and field team to win the Kansas state indoor track championship. In the spring of 1967 the high school senior placed first in both the 880-yard run (in a time of 1:55.1 minutes) and the mile run (in a time of 4:13.7 minutes), both of which were Class A state records.
Jim graduated from Sacred Heart High in 1967 and enrolled that fall at the University of Kansas, where he competed in indoor and outdoor track. In 1969 Jim ran a 1:50.4 opening 880 on the distance medley team (which included KU legend Jim Ryun) that set a world record of 9:33 flat at the 1969 Kansas Relays. Jim also ran the 880-yard second leg of the two-mile race in 1:50 flat at the 1970 NCAA Indoor Championships. That race set a world record for an 11-lap track with a time of 7:25.7 and helped the Jayhawks clinch their second straight national title by 1.5 points over Villanova. Jim was named a track All-American in 1970.
Jim’s best outdoor 880-run effort was a time of 1:49 in 1970 against UCLA. He was the 1971 880 indoor champ in Big Eight in 1:52.2 and has the 4th best 880-run of 1:51.1 in KU history. In Jim’s four years at the University of Kansas the men’s track and field team won both the Big Eight Conference indoor and outdoor championships every year.
Jim spent two years at Tipton as the biology and physical education teacher and coached football, boys’ basketball and boys’ and girls’ track. In the spring of 1973 the Tipton High School girls team won the Class 1A state track championship.
On December 27, 1973, Jim Neihouse married Karla Robinson in the St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church at Tipton, Kansas. Together they raised two children, Paula and Aaron, and later welcomed four treasured grandchildren into the family.
In the fall of 1974 the Neihouse family moved to Stockton, Kansas, where Jim taught physical education and driver education and coached cross country, boys’ basketball and boys’ track. After two years in Stockton Jim was hired in August 1976 at Downs, Kansas, where he taught earth science, biology, and physical education. In time Jim would also serve as the school’s football coach, volleyball coach, boys’ basketball coach, cross country coach, and boys’ and girls’ track coach.
In 1989 Jim’s Downs boys’ track team won the Class 1A State Track championship. In all Jim coached cross country for 29 years and track for 35 years at Downs, where he coached eight individual state champions in track and many state placers in track and cross country.
Jim retired from classroom teaching in 2005 and after a year took a job as a paraprofessional for USD 272 until his retirement in 2016, after forty years employed by the district. He retired from coaching in 2015.
In 2000 James Edward Neihouse was named one of Salina’s Top 50 athletes of all time by the Salina Journal newspaper. He is a member of the University of Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame and a 2010 inductee into the Kansas State High School Activities Association Hall of Fame. It is an honor to welcome Jim with his many accomplishments into the Osborne County Hall of Fame.
