Amos Alonzo Stagg

Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862 – March 17, 1965) was an American athlete and college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football. He introduced many innovations to American football. Stagg served as the head football coach at the International YMCA Training School (now called Springfield College) (1890–1891), the University of Chicago (1892–1932), and the College of the Pacific (1933–1946), compiling a career college football record of . His undefeated Chicago Maroons teams of 1905 and 1913 were recognized as national champions. He was also the head basketball coach for one season at Chicago (1920–1921), and the Maroons' head baseball coach for twenty seasons (1893–1905, 1907–1913).

At Chicago, Stagg also instituted an annual prep basketball tournament and track meet. Both drew the top high school teams and athletes from around the United States.

Stagg played football as an end at Yale University and was selected to the first All-America team in 1889. He was inducted into 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 roles until the 1990s. Influential in other sports, Stagg developed basketball as a five-player sport. This five-man concept allowed his 10- (later 11-) man football team the ability to compete with each other and to stay in shape over the winter. Stagg was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees in 1959, and was elected Fellow #71 in the National Academy of Kinesiology (formerly American Academy of Physical Education) in 1946.

Stagg also forged a bond between sports and religious faith early in his career that remained important to him for the rest of his life.

Early years

Stagg was born in a poor Irish neighborhood of West Orange, New Jersey, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy.

Yale

thumb|260px|left|Stagg (far left) on Yale's [[1888 Yale Bulldogs football team|1888 team]]

Stagg entered Yale University in 1884 and received his bachelor's degree in 1888. He spent two additional years at Yale studying in the Divinity School under William Rainey Harper before deciding he could have more influence on young men through coaching than through the pulpit. He was very active in the Yale YMCA where he served as general secretary during his last two years.

Baseball

Stagg was a pitcher at Yale; he declined the offers to play for six different professional baseball teams.

Basketball

Basketball had been invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a teacher at the YMCA School in Springfield. On March 11, 1892, Stagg, still an instructor at the YMCA School, played in the first public game of basketball. A crowd of 200 watched as the student team defeated the faculty, 5–1. Stagg scored the only basket for the losing side. He popularized the five-player lineup on basketball teams.

Coaching career

thumb|left|Stagg in 1906.

Stagg became the first paid football coach at Williston Seminary, a secondary school, in 1890. This was also Stagg's first time receiving pay to coach football. He coached there one day a week while also coaching full-time at the International YMCA Training School. Stagg then coached at the University of Chicago from 1892 to 1932. He was the head football coach and director of the Department of Physical Culture. Eventually, university president Robert Maynard Hutchins forced out the 70-year-old Stagg, feeling that he was too old to continue coaching.

At age 70, Stagg moved on to the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, One of his players at Pacific in 1945-46 was Wayne Hardin, who later became the Hall of Fame coach of Navy and Temple.

In the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Stagg served as a coach with the U.S. Olympic Track and Field team. He played himself in the movie Knute Rockne, All American, released in 1940. From 1947 to 1952 he served as co-coach with his son, Amos Jr., at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. Stagg's final job was as kicking coach at the local junior college in Stockton, California, which was then known as Stockton College. "The Grand Old Man of Football" retired from Stockton College at the age of 96 and died in Stockton six years later.

Vegetarianism

Stagg was reportedly an activist for vegetarianism and banned his players from using alcohol and tobacco. In 1907, he trained his Chicago football team on a strict vegetarian diet.

Stagg had spent time at the vegetarian Battle Creek Sanitarium in 1907 and was inspired by John Harvey Kellogg's vegetarian diet. Although Stagg was cited in vegetarian literature as advocating a strict vegetarian diet throughout his life, in his memoir he stated that he was a vegetarian for only two years and did it in an attempt to relieve his chronic sciatic pain.

Legacy

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 Stagg. The NCAA Division III National Football Championship game, played in Salem, Virginia, is named the Stagg Bowl after him. The football field at Susquehanna University is named Amos Alonzo Stagg Field in honor of both Stagg Sr. and Jr. Stagg was also the namesake of the University of Chicago's old Stagg Field. At University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, one of the campus streets is known as Stagg Way and Pacific Memorial Stadium, the school's football and soccer stadium, was renamed Amos Alonzo Stagg Memorial Stadium on October 15, 1988. Phillips Exeter Academy also has a field named for him and a statue. A field in West Orange, New Jersey on Saint Cloud Avenue is also named for him. The Amos Alonzo Stagg Award is awarded annually to the "individual, group, or institution whose services have been outstanding in the advancement of the best interests of football."

At the College of William and Mary, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Society was organized during 1979–1980 by students and faculty opposed to a plan by the institution's Board of Visitors to move William and Mary back into big-time college football several decades after a scandal there involving grade changes for football players. The Society was loosely organized but successful in combating, among other plans, a major expansion of the William and Mary football stadium.

thumb|Stagg in 1962

Collections of Amos Alonzo Stagg's papers are held at the University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center and at the University of the Pacific Library, Holt Atherton Department of Special Collections. The Alonzo Stagg 50/20 Hike goes through Arlington, Virginia, Washington, DC and Maryland.

The Stagg Tree, a giant sequoia in the Alder Creek Grove and the fifth largest tree in the world, is named in honor of Amos Alonzo Stagg. Stagg is also an elected Fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology (née the American Academy of Physical Education). The University of Mount Union (formerly Mount Union College) won the first of its NCAA Division III-record 13 football national championships in 1993. The Championship was held in Shenandoah, TX, in 2018 and 2019.

Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium at Hall of Fame Village powered by Johnson Controls in Canton, Ohio, was originally awarded the 2020 and 2021 Stagg Bowls; however, the 2020 Championship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 Stagg Bowl was held at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium December 2–4, 2021.

Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland hosted the 2022 Stagg Bowl, where North Central College defeated University of Mount Union. In 2023, Salem Football Stadium in Salem, Virginia was awarded the game.

Innovations

The following is a list of innovations Stagg introduced to American football. Where known, the year of its first use is annotated in parentheses. Stagg is noted as a 'contributor' if he was one of a group of individuals responsible for a given innovation.

thumb|300px|Stagg invented the end-around play (diagram pictured), and published the first book with plays diagrammed

Ends-back formation (1890)
Reverse play (1890)
First indoor game (1891)
onside kick (1894; possibly contributor)
huddle (1896)
Spiral snap (1896; contributor alongside Walter Camp, George Washington Woodruff and Germany Schulz)
line shift (1897)
unbalanced line (1900)
uniform numbers (1913)
delayed buck
linebacker position

Head coaching record

College football

College baseball

College basketball

References

External links

Guide to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Papers 1866-1964 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center