James Wilfred "Bill" Orwig[1] (January 1, 1907 – July 30, 1994) was an American football and basketball player, coach, and college athletics administrator.

Raised in Toledo, Ohio, Orwig was an all-state athlete in high school and went on to be an All-Big Ten Conference basketball player at Michigan.

[3][4][5][6] Born in Cleveland, Ohio,[7] and raised in Toledo, Ohio, Orwig won letters in football, basketball, baseball and swimming at Scott High School,[8] and won all-state honors in football and basketball.

[11] In five years at Benton Harbor, the football team won 75% of its games, including a 4–0–1 record against rival St. Joseph High School.

[12] In 1936, he moved back to his hometown, Toledo, to be the basketball and football coach at Libbey High School.

At Libbey, Orwig's teams won three state football championships and six city basketball crowns.

[7][8] He worked with the U.S. State Department during World War II, helping to set up an athletic program for the occupation forces in Germany.

[7] He was also the Toledo Rockets football coach, leading the team to a 15–4–2 record and an Ohio Conference title.

[13][14] As the ends coach at Michigan, Orwig helped develop Dick Rifenberg, Lowell Perry, Harry Allis, and Ozzie Clark.

[12] In March 1954, Orwig signed a three-year contract as the athletic director at the University of Nebraska for $12,600 a year.

[15] Orwig was the athletic director who hired Pete Elliott as the football coach at Nebraska in 1956.

[17] At the time, Orwig said: "The decision to accept the Indiana University position as Director of Athletics was a most difficult one.

I think more than anybody else in the school's history, Bill Orwig developed Indiana's athletic program into a major league operation—facilities, teams, coaches.

Doc Counsilman was one of the great coaches of all time; John Pont took a team to the Rose Bowl; and Jerry Yeagley started the soccer program and built it from nothing into the best one going.

[3][7] When he won the NIT-NACDA Athletic Directors Award, he said in his speech: "I have always been a great believer in sports as part of our American way of living.

At that time I was involved in some high school work in Toledo, Ohio, as a football and a basketball coach.

I was very fortunate to be chosen by the Big Ten Conference to work the Final Four of the NCAA, which in that year was held in Madison Square Garden.

On the Kentucky team was a great basketball player, number one in the country, by the name of Ralph Beard.

He held Ralph Beard to 3 points, one basket and one free throw, and as a result of the great work that this little guy did on Ralph Beard, and of course, the work of his teammates, Utah won the game and won the National Invitation Tournament Championship.

About 14,000 people in the Garden that night rose to a person and stood on their feet and cheered the great effort turned out by the little Japanese-American boy.

Yet they could cast aside all of their dislike for the Japanese race and stand on their feet at a sports contest and cheer the efforts of a little Japanese-American boy.

Since that time I realize how great our sports program is in America, and how much it means to the American way of life.

[10] Since 1976, the Bill Orwig Medal has been awarded each year by the Indiana University Alumni Association to recognize outstanding contributions made by a non-alumnus to the IU athletic program.