
1983 COMMUNITY LEADER INDUCTEE
FRANCIS CLAIRE
BLOSSER

It took the historic San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to move San Jose-born “Bud” Blosser to Fresno. He was another in the long line of Fresno High graduates to be inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame. Blosser participated in basketball and track for the Fresno High School Warriors. He also was a member of the Stanford University track team where he earned his degree. It wasn’t on the playing fields that he became influential, but rather in selling sports equipment. In the middle of the 1930s, he became a sports gear salesman for the famed A.G. Spalding & Brothers company. He helped pioneer and develop several products such as plastic football helmets, rubber game balls, girdle football hip pads, and foam core wrestling mats. Blosser founded the Sports Equipment Company with former Fresno State football star Seymour “Sim” Mathiesen. He quickly built a strong high school and community college clientele. He was probably best known in Fresno as a one-man employment agency for young coaches. If Blosser gave the okay the man was hired. When World War II ended, Blosser shipped baseball equipment to Japan to promote a game which would become widely accepted in that country. His home was a favorite setting for West Coast Relays parties. Bud Blosser died in 1955.