Ernest Becker (athletic director)

Ernest A. Becker (1914 – January 5, 1998) was an American tennis player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He was a founding dean, first athletic director, and important influence at the beginning of Orange County State College, which became California State University, Fullerton. According to the Orange County Register, Becker

typed the first college catalog and launched the first student newspaper. He also staged an amazingly successful attention-getting event designed to put the young campus on the map: the "First Intercollegiate Elephant Race in Human History," held in 1962. It started as a joke but drew more than a dozen entries from universities around the world and was covered in 82 news publications. The elephants were rented from a Hollywood studio, and the largest was ridden by the editor of the Harvard University student newspaper, the Crimson.

Becker started out at Orange County State College as the founding dean of students in 1959 when he first came to the school. He was an emeritus philosophy professor. Becker was a major factor in choosing the school's athletic team nickname, the Titans.