Sportspeople from Des Moines

John Francis Dee, Jr. (September 12, 1923 – April 24, 1999) was head basketball coach at the University of Alabama from 1953 to 1956 and the University of Notre Dame from 1964 to 1971.

Jack Oxenrider (December 1, 1922 – April 6, 2004) was an American football, baseball, and basketball player and coach. He played for one season with the St. Joseph Outlaws of the Professional Basketball League of America. Oxenrider served as the head football, basketball, and baseball at his alma mater, William Penn University during the 1948–49 academic year.

Louis Straight Clark (February 10, 1925 – February 10, 1995) was an American tennis player in the mid-20th century. Clark was once ranked world No. 4 in men's singles. He was ranked the No. 5 American player by the USTA for 1953.He was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He played college tennis at the University of Southern California.
A member of the US Davis Cup team, he was 5–0 in matches in 1953 and 1954 (and the latter year, a member of the winning team).
Clark won five tournaments in the 1951 season, including the singles title in Monte Carlo in 1951 after a five-set win in the final against compatriot Fred Kovaleski. That same year he defeated Whitney Reed to reach the final of the Pennsylvania State tennis championship, only to fall to future Hall of Famer Vic Seixas. In 1952 he won the Western India Tennis Championships in Bombay against Władysław Skonecki.In 1954, he won the singles title at the tournament in Cincinnati Masters, defeating Sammy Giammalva, Sr., in the final in three straight sets.
He reached the final at the Newport Casino Invitational in 1954, only to lose to Ham Richardson in five sets, in a match that lasted more than four hours.
When he teamed with fellow American Hal Burrows, the pair became one of the top doubles teams of their time. They reached the finals of the U.S. Clay Court Championship, and the semifinals of the U.S. Nationals, upsetting the team of future International Hall of Famers Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad in the quarterfinals. Clark and Burrows also reached the quarterfinals at the French National Championships, Rome and Wimbledon.

John Stephen Spray (December 16, 1940 – May 15, 2020) was an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour in the 1960s and 1970s.
Spray was born in Des Moines, Iowa and reared in Indianola, Iowa. His first big win as an amateur came in the 1958 Iowa Junior Amateur; the next year he gained national fame by winning the Western Junior. Spray attended the University of Iowa initially, but transferred to Eastern New Mexico University where he spent most of his college career. He won the NAIA Championship in 1962 and 1963 while at Eastern New Mexico.
Spray turned professional in 1964 and began play on the PGA Tour in 1965. The highlight of Spray's career came in 1969 with a win at the San Francisco Open Invitational, the last PGA Tour event held at San Francisco's storied Harding Park. His best finish in a major championship was a T-5 at the 1968 U.S. Open. Spray was hampered by injuries during the last years of his PGA career including tendinitis in his left thumb that forced him to change his grip and back surgery that caused him to miss almost all of 1974.After leaving the PGA Tour, Spray began working as the head pro at St. Louis Country Club in 1976 – a position he held for more than 30 years. In 1984, he was honored as the Gateway Section PGA Player of the Year, and was inducted into the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame in May 2009.Spray died in Chesterfield, Missouri on May 15, 2020.