Amos Alonzo Stagg
| Amos Alonzo Stagg | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Title | Head Coach | |
| Sport | Football | |
| Born | August 16 1862 | |
| Place of birth | West Orange, New Jersey | |
| Died | February 17 1965 (aged 102) | |
| Place of death | Stockton, California | |
| Career highlights | ||
| Overall | NCAA: 314-199-35 CFBDW: 329-190-35 | |
| Coaching stats | ||
| College Football DataWarehouse | ||
| Championships | ||
| 1905 National Champions 1913 National Champions 1899 Big Ten Conference Championship 1905 Big Ten Conference Championship 1907 Big Ten Conference Championship 1908 Big Ten Conference Championship 1913 Big Ten Conference Championship 1922 Big Ten Conference Championship 1924 Big Ten Conference Championship 1936 NCAC Championship 1938 NCAC Championship 1940 NCAC Championship 1941 NCAC Championship 1942 NCAC Championship | ||
| Playing career | ||
| 1885–1889 | Yale | |
| Position | End | |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||
| 1890–1891 1890–1891 1892–1932 1933–1946 |
Williston Seminary Springfield College Chicago Pacific | |
| College Football Hall of Fame, 1951 (Bio) | ||
Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16 1862 – March 17 1965) was an American collegiate coach in multiple sports, primarily football, and an overall athletic pioneer. He was born in West Orange, New Jersey, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Playing at Yale, where he was a divinity student, and a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and the secret Skull and Bones society,[1][2] he was an end on the first All-America team, selected in 1889.
He is considered to be one of the great innovators in college football. Some of his innovations included the tackling dummy, the huddle, and the reverse. He served as head football coach at Chicago from 1892 to 1932. During his tenure, Stagg compiled a record of 242-112-27 and led the Maroons to seven Big Ten Conference championships (1899, 1905, 1907, 1908, 1913, 1922, 1924).
He was elected to both the charter class of the College Football Hall of Fame (1951) and the charter class of the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959.
On September 16, 1960 Stagg, then ninety-eight years old, announced his retirement while serving as coach of the Stockton Junior College football team. After seventy years of coaching track, baseball, and basketball Stagg's career was unparralled. [3]
Coaching career
Stagg's impact on the game of football began during his college playing days at Yale University, where he was selected to the first-ever All-America team as an end in 1889.
Stagg became the first paid football coach at Williston Seminary, a secondary school, in 1890. He would coach there one day a week while also coaching full time at the Springfield, Massachusetts, YMCA, now Springfield College. While there Stagg organized the school’s first football team, and among his players was James Naismith, the inventor of basketball.[4]
He moved on to coach at the University of Chicago (1892-1932). [William Rainey Harper]], Stagg’s divinity professor at Yale, was appointed the first president of the University of Chicago and in 1892 named Stagg head football coach and director of the department of physical culture. Under Stagg’s guidance, Chicago emerged as one of the nation’s most formidable football powers during the first quarter of the 20th century.
In addition to his football duties, Stagg coached track for 32 years, baseball for 19 years, and basketball for one season. He helped to organize the Big Ten Conference (then known as the Western Conference) and was one of the founders of the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA).[4]
He the became the coach at College of the Pacific at the age of 70 and stayed in that position from 1932 to 1946. From 1947 to 1952 he served as a co-head coach with his son at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. In 1924, he served as a coach with the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team in Paris. He became known as the "grand old man" of college football.
Among the innovations credited to Stagg are the tackling dummy, the huddle, the reverse and man in motion plays, the lateral pass, uniform numbers, and awarding varsity letters.
Stagg played himself in the movie Knute Rockne, All American released in 1940.
Accomplishments
He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach in the charter class of 1951 and was the only individual honored in both areas until the 1990s. Influential in other sports, he developed basketball as a five-player sport and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees in 1959. A pitcher on his college baseball team, he declined an opportunity to play professional baseball but nonetheless influenced the game through his invention of the batting cage. He went on to earn an MPE from the Young Men's Christian Training School now know as Springfield College.
On March 11, 1892, Stagg, still an instructor at the YMCA School, played in the first public game of basketball at the Springfield (Mass.) YMCA. A crowd of 200 watched as the student team crushed the faculty, 5-1. Stagg scored the only basket for the losing side.
Legacy
In 1952, Barbara Stagg, Amos' granddaughter, started coaching the high school girls basketball team for Slatington High School in Slatington, Pennsylvania. Two high schools in the United States - one in Palos Hills, Illinois, and the other in Stockton, California - and an elementary school in Chicago, Illinois, are named after him. The NCAA Division III national football championship game, played in Salem, Virginia, is named after him. The athletic stadium at Springfield College is named Stagg Field. The football field at Susquehanna University is named Amos Alonzo Stagg Field in honor of both Stagg Sr. and Jr. And he was the namesake of the University of Chicago's old Stagg Field where, on December 2, 1942, a team of Manhattan Project scientists led by Enrico Fermi created the world's first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under the west stands of the abandoned stadium, as well as Stagg Memorial Stadium, Pacific's football and soccer stadium. Phillips Exeter also has a field named for him and a statue. A field in West Orange, New Jersey on Saint Cloud Avenue is also named from him.[5]
The Amos Alonzo Stagg Collection is held at the University of the Pacific Library, Holt Atherton Department of Special Collections.
The Amos Alonzo Stagg 50-mile Endurance Hike is held annually along the C&O canal outside Potomac, MD.
https://district.d230.org/stagg/default.aspx
The Amos Alonzo Stagg Award is given to the “individual, group or institution whose services have been outstanding in the advancement of the best interests of football.” Its purpose is “to perpetuate the example and influence of Amos Alonzo Stagg.” The award is named in honor of a man who was instrumental in founding the AFCA in the 1920s. He is considered one of the great innovators and motivating forces in the early development of the game of football. The plaque given to each recipient is a replica of the one given to Stagg at the 1939 AFCA Convention in tribute to his 50 years of service to football.[3]
Innovations in football
- names on uniforms
- lateral pass
- man in motion
- numbering plays and playing
- tackling dummy
- helmets
- Statue of Liberty play
Notes
- ↑ Alexandra Robbins, Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power, Little, Brown and Company, 2002, page 126
- ↑ Robin Lester,He also received a MPE from (Young Men's Christian Training School now know as (Springfield College)in 1891 Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-time Football at Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1995, page 9.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 [2]
- ↑ West Orange Recreation
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Considine, Bob. 1962. The Unreconstructed Amateur; a pictorial biography of Amos Alonzo Stagg. San Francisco: Amos Alonzo Stagg Foundation. OCLC 1344585
- Lester, Robin. 1995. Stagg's University: The Rise, Decline, and Fall of Big-time Football at Chicago. Sport and society. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252021282
- Lucia, Ellis. 1970. Mr. Football: Amos Alonzo Stagg. South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes. ISBN 0498073718
- University of Chicago. 1962. Amos Alonzo Stagg. Chicago: University of Chicago, Office of Public Relations. OCLC 42204083
- Stagg, Amos Alonzo. 1927. Touchdown!: as told by Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg to Wesley Winans Stout. New York: Longmans, Green. OCLC 248845934
- Vecchione, Joseph J. 1991. The New York Times Book of Sports Legends. New York: Times Books, Random House. ISBN 0812917987
External links
- Chicago Amos Alonzo Stagg profile
- [4]
- Stagg's University
- College Football Hall of Fame - biography as coach
- College Football Hall of Fame - biographer as player
- [5]
- Basketball Hall of Fame
- Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl
- [6]
- Amos Alonzo Stagg picture archives
- [7]
- Amos Alonzo Stagg Fund
- [8]
- [9]
- Amos Alonzo Stagg at Find A Grave
- http://athletics.uchicago.edu/football/fb-recordbook-early-coaching.pdf
| Preceded by: Unknown |
Springfield College Head Football Coach 1890–1891 |
Succeeded by: Unknown |
| Preceded by: None |
Chicago Head Football Coach 1892–1932 |
Succeeded by: Clark Shaughnessy |
| Preceded by: Erwin Righter |
Pacific Head Football Coach 1933–1946 |
Succeeded by: Larry Siemering |
- Backfield: QB Edgar Allan Poe • HB - Snake Ames; Roscoe Channing • FB - James Lee
- Line: C - William George • G - Pudge Heffelfinger; John Cranston • T - Hector Cowan; Charles O. Gill • E - Amos Alonzo Stagg; Arthur Cumnock
Template:Chicago Maroons football coach navbox Template:CBB navbox
Woodruff • Hartman • Fisher • Gilchrist • Ford • Hare • Lane • Yon • Cannon • Teufel • Bingman • Haverstick • Kauffman • Kelchner • Janson • Wingard • Stahl • Peters • Mitterling • Morgan • Ullery • Stagg • Keil • Garrett • Weber • Hazlett • Moll • Rees • Briggs
Template:1959 Basketball HOF
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