Robert Ligon McWhorter (June 4, 1891 – June 29, 1960) played

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

Early years

McWhorter attended

Gordon Military College Gordon State College is a public college in Barnesville, Georgia. A member of the University System of Georgia, Gordon State's spring 2021 enrollment was 2,890 students. The college campus incorporates , which includes academic buildings, resid ...

Barnesville, Georgia Barnesville is a city in Lamar County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 6,755, up from 5,972 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Lamar County. Barnesville was once dubbed the "Buggy Capi ...

. He played football and baseball there under coach

Alex Cunningham Alexander Cunningham (born 1 May 1955) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockton North since 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Shadow Minister for Courts and Sentencing since 2020. Born in ...

. Their baseball team came up to Georgia and won 11–0. Georgia athletic chairman Dr. S. V. Sanford hired Cunningham that same day, and McWhorter followed.

University of Georgia

Football

As a halfback, he scored 61 touchdowns from

1910 Events January * January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...

1913 Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the ...

. In 1913, McWhorter became UGA’s first

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

n. He was the captain of both the baseball and football teams in his senior year. He was a member of the

Chi Phi Fraternity Chi Phi () is considered by some as the oldest American men's college social fraternity that was established as the result of the merger of three separate organizations that were each known as Chi Phi. The earliest of these organizations was for ...

Phi Kappa Literary Society The Phi Kappa Literary Society is a college literary society, located at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and is one of the few active literary societies left in America. Founded in 1820, the society continues to meet every academ ...

, and

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

at Georgia. Sportswriter

Dick Jemison Richard Stubbs Jemison (September 19, 1886 – January 9, 1965) was an early 20th-century American sportswriter in the South who was for eleven years the sporting editor of the ''Atlanta Constitution''. He wrote extensively on baseball and foo ...

said "When you mention football to an

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

fan its definition is Bob McWhorter, and vice-versa." During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, McWhorter was captain of the

1917 Camp Gordon football team The 1917 Camp Gordon football team represented Camp Gordon near Augusta, Georgia, during the 1917 college football season. The team was led by a backfield of former Auburn back and war hero Kirk Newell, former Mercer back Cochran, former Geo ...

Legacy

He made an all-time Georgia Bulldogs football team picked in 1935. Bob McWhorter was inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vo ...

in 1954. He was inducted in the

Georgia Sports Hall of Fame The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame is located in Macon, Georgia. It is the largest state sports hall of fame in the United States at . Exhibitions The Hall of Fame houses over of exhibit space broken down into sections including Hall of Fame Induc ...

in 1964. McWhorter was chosen for an ''Associated Press'' Southeast Area All-Time football team 1869–1919 era.

Baseball

Although he was offered a professional baseball contract, he instead chose to study law at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

Attorney

After becoming an attorney, he returned to

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the ...

to practice law. He was a four-term mayor of Athens (1940–1947) and a law professor at Georgia from 1923 to 1958. He died in the same town in which he was born, Athens, Georgia, on June 29, 1960, at the age of 69.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McWhorter, Bob 1891 births 1960 deaths 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American politicians Camp Gordon football players Georgia Bulldogs baseball players Georgia Bulldogs football players All-Southern college football players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Georgia (U.S. state) lawyers Mayors of places in Georgia (U.S. state) University of Georgia faculty University of Virginia School of Law alumni Sportspeople from Athens, Georgia Players of American football from Georgia (U.S. state) Baseball players from Georgia (U.S. state)