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1889 All-America college football team

Official list of the best college football players of 1890

Official list of the best college football players of 1890

The 1889 All-America college football team was the first All-America college football team. The team was selected by Caspar Whitney and published in This Week's Sports.

The team selected by Whitney in 1889 marked the origin of the "All-America" teams that have since been picked in many collegiate sports. All eleven members of the 1889 All-America team played for either Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, then known as the "Big Three" of college football. Some sources indicate that Walter Camp assisted Whitney with the selection of the 1889 All-American team, while others indicate that Camp did not become involved in the selection process until some time in the 1890s.

The first All-America team included Amos Alonzo Stagg (then a player for Yale), Pudge Heffelfinger (who later became the first professional football player), "Snake" Ames (who set a college scoring record with 730 points), Edgar Allan Poe (second cousin, twice removed of the writer of the same name), Arthur Cumnock (described as the greatest Harvard football player of all time in 1913), and Roscoe Channing (who later served with Theodore Roosevelt in the Rough Riders).

Profiles of the 1889 All-America eleven

  • Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862–1965): Yale's All-American end, Stagg became football coach at the University of Chicago from 1892 to 1932 and the University of the Pacific from 1933 to 1946.
  • Pudge Heffelfinger (1867–1954): Yale's guard, "Pudge" Heffelfinger was a native of Minnesota who was considered the greatest lineman of his time. He was one of the charter inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame.
  • Knowlton Ames (1868–1931): A native of Chicago, Princeton's All-America fullback "Snake" Ames set an unofficial collegiate scoring record in his time with 730 points, including 62 touchdowns and 176 points after touchdown. Ames is credited with being the first player to execute a fake punt and part of the first team to fully develop the "power sweep." Ames moved west to coach Purdue University from 1891 to 1892.
  • Hector Cowan (1863–1941): Princeton's tackle, "Hec" Cowan helped lead the 1889 Princeton team to a perfect 10–0 record. Pudge Heffelfinger later said of Cowan, "He had the strongest shoulders and arms I've ever been up against and his stubby legs drove like pistons when he carried the ball. Hector could carry a couple of tacklers on his back, yet he was plenty fast in the open." He later served as the coach at the University of Kansas from 1894 to 1896.
  • Edgar Allan Poe (1871–1961): Princeton's quarterback, Poe was named after his relative and celebrated poet Edgar Allan Poe. After Princeton beat Harvard, 41–15, a Harvard man reportedly asked a Princeton alumnus whether Poe was related to the great Edgar Allan Poe. According to the story, "the alumnus looked at him in astonishment and replied, 'He is the great Edgar Allan Poe.'"
  • Arthur Cumnock (1868–1930): Harvard's Cumnock was known as a fierce tackler and has been ranked by one author as perhaps the greatest player in that school's long football tradition. Cumnock later went into the cotton mill business and was the treasurer of one of the largest corporations in New England.
  • Roscoe Channing (1868–1961): Princeton's halfback Channing later served with Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Spanish–American War. For many years, he was the President of Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company, a copper mining company in Flin Flon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
  • Charles O. Gill (1868–1959): Yale's Gill later coached football at California in 1894, and at New Hampshire in 1908.

Team lineup by position

;Ends

  • Amos Alonzo Stagg, Yale (College Football Hall of Fame)
  • Arthur Cumnock, Harvard

;Tackles

  • Hector Cowan, Princeton (College Football Hall of Fame)
  • Charles O. Gill, Yale

;Guards

  • Pudge Heffelfinger, Yale (College Football Hall of Fame)
  • John Cranston, Harvard

;Center

  • William George, Princeton

;Quarterback

  • Edgar Allan Poe, Princeton

;Halfbacks

  • Roscoe Channing, Princeton
  • James P. Lee, Harvard

;Fullback

  • Knowlton Ames, Princeton (College Football Hall of Fame)

References

References

  1. (2016). "Football Award Winners". National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
  2. Heffelfinger was paid $500 in 1892 to play for the [[Allegheny Athletic Association#Professional football
  3. {{College Football HoF
  4. {{College Football HoF
  5. (2003-10-13). "Memories of the Poe brothers". Princeton Weekly Bulletin.
  6. Floyd Conner. (2000). "Football's Most Wanted, p. 47". Brassey's.
  7. Clayton Colman Hall. (1912). "Baltimore, pp. 691–692". Lewis Historical Publishing Co..
  8. "Harvard's Greatest". LA84 Foundation.
  9. "University of California Directory". Sports Network.
  10. "Charles O. Gill Records by Year". College Football Data Warehouse.
Info: Wikipedia Source

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