Amos Alonzo Stagg
From Hoopedia
Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862–March 17, 1965), was a renowned 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. He played football and baseball at Yale University, where he was a divinity student, and a member of the secret Skull and Bones society. As a football player he was an end on the first All-American team, selected in 1889.
He later became the football coach at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) (1890-92), the University of Chicago (1892-1932), and the College of the Pacific (1933-46) after he was forced to retire from Chicago at the age of 70. During his career, he developed numerous basic tactics for the game of football (including the man in motion and the lateral pass), as well as some equipment. From 1947 to 1958 he served as an assistant football coach under 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.
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.
In 1892, he brought basketball from Springfield to Chicago. While coach and director of athletics at the University of Chicago, he popularized the practice of five-man basketball. In 1917, Stagg organized the University of Chicago National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament, which, until its demise in 1931, did wonders to improve and standardize the rules and interpretation for high school play.
Stagg coached the University of Chicago against the University of Iowa in the first college game played with five players on a side on January 18, 1896. (Chicago won, 15-12.)
The Amos Alonzo Stagg Collection is held at the University of the Pacific Library, Holt Atherton Department of Special Collections.
