Earl Wight surfaced in Fresno in 1924 following three seasons as basketball coach at the University of California. Wight accepted the job as director of athletics and physical education at Fresno State which fielded its first football team in 1921. Wight was a star quarterback at Pomona College where in 1912, he sparked an upset over USC by scoring three touchdowns. In 1927, he helped J. Flint Hanner found the West Coast Relays which became one of the premier track and field carnivals in the country. Wight was part of the organizing committee that formed the Far Western Conference of which Fresno State was a member for ten years. Wight coached golf at Fresno State for fifteen years and tutored the Bulldog football and baseball teams when the bulk of the coaching staff was engaged in World War II. When he retired from athletics, he was an administrative assistant to school president Arnold Joyal.