Amos Alonzo Stagg

Amos Alonzo Stagg ( born August 16, 1862 in West Orange, † March 17, 1965 in Stockton, California ) was an American player and coach in the field of College Football. He served from 1890 to 1946 as a football coach at several universities in the U.S., including from 1892 to 1932 at the University of Chicago, and won during this period, with a total score of 314 victories, 199 defeats and 35 draws seven championships the Big Ten Conference and subsequently awarded two unofficial national champion. In 1943 the members of the American Football Coaches Association elected him as Coach of the Year, in addition, he was accepted in 1951 as a player and as a coach in the College Football Hall of Fame and Naismith Memorial Basketball 1959 in the Hall of Fame.

In addition to his work as a coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was one who was a strong supporter of amateur sport, from 1906 to 1933 and the board of the American Olympic Association and of their predecessor organization. His entire career as player and coach, during which he an independent sport fundamentally shaped the development of American football from a variant of English rugby and also influenced the creation of the basketball game, applies with more than seven decades as the longest in the history of the football sport.

Life

Amos Alonzo Stagg was born in 1862 as the fifth of eight children of his parents in West Orange, where he graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy until 1883. He then studied theology from 1884 at Yale University, where he played both as a Right end on the football team as well as a pitcher in the baseball team. He won five Conference Championships with the baseball team and was elected in 1889 to the All- American Football. Because of his Christian faith he had originally planned to become a Presbyterian minister after completing his studies at Yale, but this abandoned due to his low voice. Also offers baseball clubs for a professional career, he refused. Instead, he obtained a master's degree in Physical Education (Master of Physical Education, MPE) at the Young Men's Christian Association Training School, now Springfield College, where he also served as head coach of the football team in the years 1890/1891.

Subsequently, he served from 1892 to 1932 for four decades as football head coach as well as the rank of professor as sports director at the University of Chicago. During this time he led the football team of the University to seven championships in the Big Ten Conference, the crews of the Chicago Maroons from the years 1905 and 1913 were also appointed subsequently became the unofficial national champion. From 1893 to 1905 and from 1907 to 1913, he coached beyond the baseball team of the University as well as in the years 1920/1921 and the basketball team. He was also a 1906-1933 member of the board of the American Olympic Association and of their predecessor. At the Olympic Summer Games in Paris in 1924 he was one of the coaches of American athletics teams.

After his retirement as head coach at the University of Chicago for reasons of age, he moved at the age of 70 years at the College of the Pacific, where he from 1933 to 1946 also held the position of the football head coach and the team's five championships in the Northern California Athletic Conference won. From 1947 to 1952, he then served together with his elder son as head coach at Susquehanna University. He finished his career in 1960 at the age of 98 years after he coached from 1953 to 1958 nor the kicker of the team of the Stockton Junior College until 1960 and acts as assistant to the team. His overall record as a coach included 314 wins and 199 defeats and 35 draws in football, 266 wins and 158 defeats and three draws in baseball and 14 wins with six defeats in basketball. This makes it one of the top ten coaches in the history of college football to have won at least 300 games with their teams.

Amos Alonzo Stagg was married in 1894, and the father of two sons and a daughter. He died in 1965 at the age of 102 years in his sleep in a nursing home in Stockton, California. His sons both played quarterback at the University of Chicago and were like her father later worked as a college football coach.

Awards and appreciation

Amos Alonzo Stagg developed various strategies, team formations, moves and technical aids in football, so among other things, the Lateralpass, Trickspielzug the Statue of Liberty, dummies for training of tackles, and safety equipment such as helmets, hip pads and padded goalposts. In addition, he was at Springfield College with James Naismith involved in the development of the basketball game and in March 1892 as a player at the first public basketball game in sports history. On him the definition of team strength in basketball at five field players per team goes back. He was considered the " Grand Old Man of College Football" ( German: Big old man of the College Football) as well as the " Dean of all football coaches, the patriarch of the Game" ( German: Dean of all the football coach, the patriarch of the game). From Knute Rockne, who for 13 years coached the football team of the University of Notre Dame, and because of its success is considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football, is the statement "All football comes from Stagg " survived. The American sports reporter Grantland Rice Amos Alonzo Stagg was one of the three coaches, which he called the " Great Inventors ": designated ( German Inventors ) of American football. About his life and work several dissertations have yet been written, so at the East Texas State University, at Loyola University Chicago, at Michigan State University and Springfield College.

The members of the American Football Coaches Association ( AFCA ) to occur within the Amos Alonzo Stagg 1921 had contributed jointly with John Heisman and Charles Dudley Daly, voted him 1943 Coach of the Year. In 1951 he was admitted as a player and as a coach in the founding year of the College Football Hall of Fame. Eight years later, the reception followed in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Named after him are an elementary school in Chicago, and two high schools in Stockton and in Palos Hills, a suburb of Chicago. Also, the Stagg Bowl, the game the football national championship in Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA ) and the stages or football game fields at the Phillips Exeter Academy, at Springfield College, at the University of Chicago, at the Susquehanna University and the University of the Pacific are named after him. The AFCA has been giving Amos Alonzo Stagg Award 1940 to individuals, groups, or organizations whose achievements have contributed an outstanding contribution to the advancement of American football. By 1984 awarded by the United States Sports Academy Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award an outstanding coach a men's team will be honored annually. In the Big Ten Conference, the Stagg Championship Trophy is named for the winner of the Conference Championship game after Amos Alonzo Stagg.

Works (selection)

  • A scientific and practical Treatise on American Football for Schools and Colleges. Hartford CT 1893 New York 1894
  • Touchdown! New York 1927
57384
de