NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award Recipients
Biography
Nicholas attended USC, where he studied engineering before leaving to take a position with the Pasadena Department of Parks. In 1945, the position of manager of the Los Angeles Coliseum became open and the Coliseum was flooded with 200 applications. Bill Ackerman, then athletic director at UCLA, and Arnold Eddy, graduate manager of athletics at USC, nominated Nicholas for the job. He was hired and ran the show for the next 30 years.
Nicholas came up with the plan to issue revenue bonds for the construction of the Sports Arena for basketball and hockey, while improving the Coliseum facilities. He was also a member of the Tournament of Roses Association for 50 years and a member of the important Football Committee beginning in 1938. Nicholas retired as manager of the Coliseum in 1973.
When Lathrop Leishman, the 1974 recipient of the NFF Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football award, stepped down as Chairman of the Football Committee, Nicholas was appointed to succeed him. In 1990, the Coliseum Commission voted to salute Nicholas with a bronze plaque in the Coliseum's Memorial Court of Honor alongside similar tributes to such giants of athletics as Knute Rockne, Jesse Owens and Howard Jones. Nicholas died of a stroke in 1993 at the age of 85.
