The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and one in Canada. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and helps over 500,000 college student athletes who compete annually in college sports. The organization is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Swarthmore College is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as a college under the Religious Society of Friends. By 1906, Swarthmore had dropped its religious affiliation and officially became non-sectarian.
College athletics in the United States or college sports in the United States refers primarily to sports and athletic training and competition organized and funded by institutions of tertiary education in a two-tiered system.
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on their ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United States and to a certain extent in Canada, but in the vast majority of countries in the world they are rare or non-existent.
Jackie Wayne Sherrill is an American former college football player and coach. He was the head football coach at Washington State University (1976), the University of Pittsburgh (1977–1981), Texas A&M University (1982–1988), and Mississippi State University (1991–2003), compiling a career head coaching record of 180–120–4. Sherrill is a studio analyst for Fox Sports Net's college football coverage.
In American and Canadian college athletics, a walk-on is someone who becomes part of a college team without being recruited or awarded an athletic scholarship. Walk-on players are generally viewed as weaker less-significant players and may not even be placed on an official depth chart or traveling team, while the scholarship players are a team's main players. However, a walk-on player occasionally becomes a noted member of the team.
In college athletics in the United States, recruiting is the process in which college coaches add prospective student athletes to their roster each off-season. This process typically culminates in a coach extending an athletic scholarship offer to a player who is about to be a junior in high school or higher. There are instances, mostly at lower division universities, where no athletic scholarship can be awarded and where the player pays for tuition, housing, and textbook costs out of pocket or from financial aid. During this recruiting process, schools must comply with rules that define who may be involved in the recruiting process, when recruiting may occur and the conditions under which recruiting may be conducted. Recruiting rules seek, as much as possible, to control intrusions into the lives of prospective student-athletes. The NCAA defines recruiting as “any solicitation of prospective student-athletes or their parents by an institutional staff member or by a representative of the institution’s athletics interests for the purpose of securing a prospective student-athlete’s enrollment and ultimate participation in the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program."
William Winston Roper was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at the Virginia Military Institute (1903–1904), Princeton University, the University of Missouri (1909), and Swarthmore College (1915–1916), compiling a career college football record of 112–38–18. Roper's Princeton Tigers football teams of 1906, 1911, 1920, and 1922 have been recognized as national champions. His 89 wins are the most of any coach in the history of the program. Roper was also the head basketball coach at Princeton for one season in 1902–03, tallying a mark of 8–7. Roper played football as an end, basketball, and baseball as an outfielder at Princeton, from which he graduated in 1902. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951.
Eugene Leroy Mercer was a respected surgeon but was best known for his college football career, while attending the University of Pennsylvania. In 1910, he led Penn to the eastern championship, and then served as the Quakers' captain for the next two seasons. During his time at Penn, Mercer helped the Quakers to a 23–10 football record and received All-American honors in 1910, 1911 and 1912.
The National Letter of Intent (NLI) is a document used to indicate a student athlete's commitment to participating in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) colleges and universities in the United States. The NCAA Eligibility Center manages the daily operations of the NLI program while the Collegiate Commissioners Association (CCA) provides governance oversight of the program. Started in 1964 with seven conferences and eight independent institutions, the program now includes 676 Division I and II participating institutions. There are designated dates for different sports, and these dates are commonly referred to as "Signing Days".
George Haydock Brooke was an American college football player and coach. He played football as a fullback at Swarthmore College from 1889 to 1892 and at the University of Pennsylvania from 1893 to 1895. Brooke served as the head football coach at Stanford University (1897), Swarthmore (1900–1912), and Penn (1913–1915), compiling a career coaching record of 90–46–10. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1969.
Emerson Floyd Martin is a retired American football player who played two games with the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) during the team's expansion year of 1995.
The Haverford Fords football team represented Haverford College in college football. The team started in 1879, just the third school in Pennsylvania to field a football team. The team was rivals with Swarthmore. The 1894 game claims to have the first "action shot" photograph of a game. College athletic director James Babbitt was an important figure in the 1905 rules negotiations that brought the forward pass, 10-yard first down and other innovations into the game.
The Maryville Scots football team represents Maryville College in college football.
247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount.
Albert Paxson Hall Jr. was an American college football coach from West Chester, Pennsylvania. He served as the head football coach at Wake Forest University for one season in 1908, compiling a record of 1–4. He was an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College.
The 1905 Navy Midshipmen football team represented the United States Naval Academy during the 1905 college football season. In their second season under head coach Paul Dashiell, the Midshipmen compiled a record of 10–1–1, shut out eight opponents, and outscored all opponents by a combined score of 243 to 23.
The 1959 Eastern Michigan Hurons football team represented Eastern Michigan University in the Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) during the 1959 NCAA College Division football season. In their eighth season under head coach Fred Trosko, the Hurons compiled a 1–7 record and were outscored by their opponents, 217 to 50. In the second game of the season, the Hurons defeated Illinois State by a 14–7 score, but then lost the six remaining games. Dave L. Longridge was the team captain and also led the team with 513 passing yards and 517 yards of total offense.
The 1887 Lehigh football team represented Lehigh University in the 1887 college football season. The team finished with an overall record of 4–3.
The Swarthmore football team represented Swarthmore College in American football. Swarthmore was the 15th oldest college football program in the United States. The football program started in 1878 with a game against Penn. The program played no more than two games per year until 1885 when it played a six-game schedule. There was no team in 1880 and 1881. The team did not hire a coach until 1888 when Jacob K. Shell began his 11-year tenure as head coach. This article covers the program's early years prior to the hiring of Shell as the school's first head football coach.
