University of San Francisco Athletics

Athlete All-American

Ivan Slavich, Jr.

Honors:
Men's Basketball (1944-1945)

Ivan L. Slavich Jr. was born on September 9, 1927 in San Francisco, CA. His father, Ivan Slavich, Sr., was the Clerk of the San Francisco Municipal Court and a Democratic ward politician, and his mother, Mary Foley, hailed from Ireland. He attended Saint Ignatius Preparatory and USF, where he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in 1951. He played basketball for one season. He also later earned a Master's in Business from George Washington University and a Degree in Management from Harvard.

He was a United States Army colonel who helped pioneer the use of the HU-1A "Huey" helicopter as a tactical close-in support assault ship, and commanded the first armed combat helicopter unit in American military history. He served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; his military service also included an early enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Slavich served from 1951 to 1975 as a U.S. Army officer, and from 1945 to 1947 as an enlisted U.S. Marine. Slavich's military career began in 1945 when he was drafted into the United States Marine Corps after graduating from high school. After serving his enlistment, he attended the University of San Francisco under U.S. Army ROTC, serving as a reserve Second Lieutenant from February 1950. He received his commission as an infantry Second Lieutenant in the Regular Army in 1951 upon his graduation. After basic training, he reported to Korea to serve with the 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. After the Korean War, he returned to Fort Benning for advanced infantry training, serving first as an aide-de-camp and then as a parachuting instructor with the airborne department.

After earning his wings for fixed-wing and helicopter at the U.S. Army Aviation School, he was deployed to Okinawa with the 503rd Infantry Regiment. In 1960, while stationed in Okinawa, then Major Slavich discovered a detachment of 12 HU-1A "Huey" support helicopters. He formed a company, and worked to arm the helicopters as the French had armed theirs during the Algerian War in the late 1950s. The goal was to prove that the HU-1A (and later, UH-1B) helicopters could be sufficiently armed to provide effective close-in tactical support for troop-carrying ships. Slavich and his men were able to test their experiment in combat. The unit was first deployed to Thailand, and then in 1962, the testing ground was moved to the battlefield when Slavich took command of the newly formed Utility Tactical Transport Company (UTT) in Vietnam.

Under Slavich's command, the UTT quickly earned a reputation for "innovative use of helicopter-borne firepower, finely honed aviator skills, and aggressive support of the ground soldier". Slavich and his men again and again proved that the highly maneuverable and extremely tactical Huey gunships were far superior to fixed-wing aircraft when it came to the kind of close-in support that was required for a Southeast Asian battlefield, especially when lines often blurred between enemy camp and civilian village.

Once word spread about the effectiveness of the UTT, Army and Marine transport pilots refused to fly without UTT support; at times, Slavich and his men would fly up to five and six missions a day, proving to his superiors "that these most vulnerable of military machines were, when flown with originality and daring, in fact not vulnerable at all". General Paul Harkins, head of over 14,000 advisers in South Vietnam, called the UTT "the most essential unit in my command".

From 1963, Slavich continued his military career, rising to the rank of brigade commander, U.S. Army Readiness Division at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. After retiring from the U.S. Army in 1975, Slavich settled in North Carolina, where he taught at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte before embarking on a successful career in real estate. He was the president of McGuire Commercial Properties in Charlotte, and the Oppel Company of Tega Cay, a residential building company in Tega Cay, South Carolina (ParadeMagazine, Onceuponadistantwar).

Schedule

Athlete All-American

Footer

Upcoming Events

Upcoming Event: Men's Golf at El Macero Classic - Day Three on Apr. 12, 2026

Upcoming Event: Baseball versus San Diego on Apr. 12, 2026 at 1:00 p.m.

Upcoming Event: Baseball at Sacramento State on Apr. 14, 2026 at 6:00 p.m.

Upcoming Event: Track and Field versus Bryan Clay Invitational on Apr. 16, 2026

Upcoming Event: Baseball at Portland on Apr. 17, 2026 at 6:00 p.m.

Upcoming Event: Beach Volleyball at Saint Mary's on Apr. 18, 2026 at 10:00 a.m.

Upcoming Event: Baseball at Portland on Apr. 18, 2026 at 3:00 p.m.

Upcoming Event: Baseball at Portland on Apr. 19, 2026 at 1:00 p.m.

Athlete All-American

Footer