Dean Nesmith was born into the large family of Joseph Leslie and Elma Belle (Gordon) Nesmith in Belleville, Kansas. He played football in high school and college, beginning his study of physical education at the University of Kansas in 1932. After graduation he briefly played professional football for the 1936 New York Yankees. He returned to KU in 1938 to be an athletic trainer, a position he held until 1983.

In 1939 Nesmith married Norma R. Wallace, with whom he had a son, Leslie Wallace Nesmith, and a daughter, Ida Louise Nesmith. In 1945 he volunteered with the Army Special Service in Italy, subsequently returning to KU. He was an athletic trainer for the 1960 Olympic basketball team. In 1966 Nesmith married his second wife, L. Aileen Jones.

Nesmith worked with several famous KU athletes, including John Riggins, Gale Sayer, John Handle and Wilt Chamberlain, training to avoid and to heal injuries. In addition to his sports medicine expertise, the “Deaner,” as he was known, often inspired discipline and perseverance in conversation with his trainees. In the 46 years that he was athletic trainer at KU he did not miss a single football game. Nesmith was inducted into the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame in 1971, as well as the University of Kansas Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984.

Dean Nesmith died of cancer in 1985. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and the KU Alumni Association. Nesmith was posthumously inducted into the Mid America Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Kansas Athletic Trainers’ Society Hall of Fame in 1997.

[Information pulled from the 2022 KU School of Health Professions Athletic Training Student Handbook, University Archives records, and Deaner: Fifty Years of University of Kansas Athletics.]