Edmundson gained his nickname from his mother: as a child he often muttered, "Oh, heck."
Collegiate and Olympic career
One of the first great athletes at the fledgling University of Idaho in Moscow, Edmundson competed in track for his hometown university, and launched the team onto the national stage when he and two other athletes traveled to the Lewis and Clark Exposition Games against the top schools in the Northwest. While still in high school at the UI prep school, he lowered the Northwest record for the half-mile in June 1905. Newspapers wrote that Edmundson "impressed with his graceful form and unfaltering determination." He is responsible for organizing the Idaho cross country team in 1908, which set the foundation for a team that would win nine Pacific Coast Conference titles. In 1908, Edmundson traveled to Stanford for the western U.S. Olympic trials, where he won the 800 meters and finished second in the 400 meters, but did not make the Olympic team. He later held the title of top half-miler in the country through 1912. Edmundson became the first Idahoan to compete in the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912. He finished seventh in the 800 meters and sixth in the 400 meters. Edmundson attended the UI prep school and was a charter member of the new chapter of Kappa Sigmafraternity as an undergraduate. He earned a bachelor's degree in agriculture from Idaho in 1910, and then taught and coached at the high school level, one year each at Coeur d'Alene and Broadway High School in Seattle. He returned to Moscow to coach the UI track team in 1913.
Coaching career
After several seasons as track coach at Idaho, he left after a salary dispute and coached at Whitman College in nearby Walla Walla for a He returned to Idaho as both track and basketball coach in and his basketball teams compiled a record in two seasons. It was these basketball teams which were the first UI teams referred to as the the nickname was eventually applied to all of the university's athletic teams by the early 1920s. After a track season at Texas A&M, he headed to Seattle to coach the Washington Huskies, where he is credited with the creation of the fast-break offense style, which he attributed to his track background. He coached basketball through March 1947, and continued as track coach for another seven years.
The UW Pavilion, a multi-purpose field house opened in December 1927, was renamed "Hec Edmundson Pavilion" in his honor in January 1948. In March 1999, "Hec Ed" underwent a major interior renovation for 19 months and re-opened in November
Grave
Edmundson died of a stroke in August 1964 at the age of 78, and was interred in Calvary Cemetery in northeast Seattle, about a mile north-northeast of the Hec Edmundson Pavilion. He is buried next to his wife Mary Zona Schultz son James and infant child . Edmundson was posthumously inducted into the Big W Club, the UW athletics hall of fame, in the first class of 1979. Edmundson's parents were Thomas Sinclair Edmundson and Emma Jeannette Rowley both buried in Moscow. His younger brother was Wilbur Clifford Edmundson, who taught horticulture at the UI and later worked for the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
