American athlete and college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football
1862 CE
to 1965 CE
Amos Alonzo Stagg (August 16, 1862 – March 17, 1965) is an American athlete and college coach in multiple sports, primarily American football.
He 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 314–199–35.
His Chicago Maroons teams of 1905 and 1913 have been recognized as national champions.
He is also the head basketball coach for one season at the University of Chicago (1920–1921), and the head baseball coach there for nineteen seasons (1893–1905, 1907–1913).
At the University of Chicago, Stagg also institutes an annual prep basketball tournament and track meet.
Both draw the top high school teams and athletes from around the United States.
Stagg plays football as an end at Yale University and is selected to the first College Football All-America Team in 1889.
He is inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach in the charter class of 1951 and is the only individual honored in both roles until the 1990s.
Influential in other sports, Stagg develops basketball as a five-player sport.
This five-man concept allows his ten- (later eleven-) man football team the ability to compete with each other and to stay in shape over the winter.
Stagg is elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees in 1959.
Stagg also forges a bond between sports and religious faith early in his career that remains important to him for the rest of his life
