y a l e f o o t b a l l f r o m a to z 69 the defensive line he stood like a modern linebacker, turning blockers aside with his hands. Heffelfinger’s football career began early—as a high school student in Minneapolis, he played for the Minnesota varsity, permissible then—and continued long after his Yale years. In 1892 the Allegheny Athletic Association paid him $500 to play a game in Pittsburgh, making him football’s first pro. He coached at Lehigh, California and Minnesota. In 1916, at the age of 48, he scrimmaged against the Yale varsity and gave Mac Baldrige, a starting tackle, two broken ribs. At 53, Heffelfinger played 56 minutes alongside collegians in an all-star game in Columbus, Ohio. He died in 1954 at 86. Of him the late sports writer Grantland Rice remarked, “His kind will never pass this way again.”
heisman trophy Larry Kelley ’37 and Clint Frank ’38 were the first players from the same college to win back-toback Heisman Trophies. Kelley, an offensive and defensive end and Yale’s captain, caught 17 passes for 372 yards in 1936 as the Bulldogs went 7-1. For his career he had 49 receptions for 889 yards and scored 13 touchdowns. Later a prep school teacher and fund-raiser, he died at 85 in the summer of 2000. Frank, a tailback, defensive halfback and Kelley’s successor as captain, rushed for 630 yards and scored 11 touchdowns in 1937, when Yale was 6-1-1. For his career he rushed 321 times for 1,244 yards and completed 59 passes for 937 yards and 9 touchdowns. He became a Chicago advertising executive and died in 1992. Frank had been fifth in the 1936 Heisman voting. Among more recent Yale players, Brian Dowling was ninth in the 1968 Heisman balloting and Rich Diana was 10th in 1981.
yard rusher, made All-Pro twice and was chosen for four Pro Bowls. He has served as vice president of the Baltimore Orioles and now is active as a consultant in areas from sports marketing to alcohol and drug rehabilitation.
project at the Yale Bowl. He also has given the university Johnson Field, a synthetic-turf complex used for field hockey. The Ivy League Football Association honored him in January 2005 with one of its eight alumni awards.
ivy league
johnson, eric ‘01
Yale plays football in the Ivy League, America’s most stable major conference. More than half a century after its launching, the league has the same eight members as at its start: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale. Long recognized as an informal group of distinguished schools, the Ivies came together formally through the Presidents’ Agreement of 1954, which set forth standards on academic progress, awarding of scholarships, scheduling, eligibility, and postseason and allstar participation. The agreement was implemented with the start of round-robin scheduling in 1956-57. Since then, Yale has won 14 football championships (six outright, eight shared).
A record-setting wide receiver at Yale, Johnson has spent seven seasons in the National Football League as a tight end with the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints. He had 48 catches in 14 games for the Johnson caught 4 passes in Saints in 2007. He his 1st playoff game spent his first six pro seasons with the 49ers and in 2004 ranked third among NFL tight ends in receptions (82) and fourth in receiving yardage (825). At Yale from 1997 through 2000, Johnson set 11 receiving records and one in punting. He had at least one catch in 24 successive games, but his biggest was the sliding grab with 29 seconds left that beat Harvard 24-21 in 1999. He had 21 catches for 244 yards in that game, which earned Yale a share of the Ivy title. For his career he had 181 catches for 2,144 yards and 23 touchdowns, all Yale records.
jackson, levi ’50 The first African-American to play football at Yale, Levi A. Jackson ’50 distinguished himself on campus and in later life, when he became a top executive with Ford Motor Co. A four-sport star at New Haven’s Hillhouse High School, he entered Yale after Army service and ranked fifth nationally in rushing as a freshman in 1946. Injuries his sophomore year slowed him, but he graduated owning 13 modern Yale records in rushing, total offense, kickoff returns, scoring and punting. He was Yale’s 1949 football captain and was a reserve on the basketball team that narrowly lost to Illinois in the 1949 NCAA tournament. Joining Ford after graduation, he rose from a job in personnel to become head of the company’s urban affairs program, a nationwide effort to provide job training and opportunities for the disadvantaged. He also served on a presidential commission on amnesty for draft evaders. He died in December 2000.
jones, t.a.d. ’08 Thomas Albert Dwight Jones, class of 1908, was an All-America quarterback at Yale and the Blue’s head coach for 10 seasons (1916-17, 1920-27). He put the Yale-Harvard rivalry in perspective with this pregame oration: “Gentlemen, you are now going out to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”
T.A.D. Jones
mcclung, bum ’92
Larry Kelley (L) and Clint Frank (R) With Carm Cozza
hill, calvin ’69 Known to many sports fans today as the father of former NBA star Grant Hill, Calvin Hill ’69 is remembered around Yale as one of the Blue’s most versatile and successful athletes. He was an All-Ivy running back for Yale’s league champions of 1967 and ’68, as well as a track performer who set a Heptagonal outdoor record in the long jump. Besides scoring 24 touchdowns in his Yale career, he threw six touchdown passes and once, in an intrasquad game, kicked a 52-yard field goal. Chosen by Dallas in the first round of the 1969 NFL draft, he became the Cowboys’ first 1,000-
Levi Jackson with his head coach, Herman Hickman
johnson, charles ’54 Though listed as a 183-pound third-string guard on the 1953 team’s depth chart, Johnson has been huge when it comes to support of Yale athletics. Chairman and chief executive of Franklin Resources, a major mutual fund company, he is the lead donor for the continuing $21 million renovation
His nickname was Bum, but Thomas Lee McClung, class of 1892, was no stranger to money. He served as treasurer of the United States in the Taft administration (1909-12) after stints as treasurer of Yale and an executive of the Southern Railway. An All-America halfback in 1890 and captain of an unscored-on (13-0) Yale team in 1891, McClung would have run up huge numbers on the gridiron if statistics had been kept as they are today. He scored 63 touchdowns (4 points each) and 93 goals after touchdown (2 points each) that are documented by newspaper accounts, giving him at least 438 points. Because stories on lopsided games often omitted details, his actual point total is believed to have been at least 510 and maybe close to 560. It didn’t seem to matter to McClung, who as captain skipped some of his own team’s games so he could scout Princeton and Harvard.
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