John Emmett "Boozer" Pitts Sr. (November 25, 1893 – February 10, 1971) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Auburn University from 1923 to 1924 and again for the final seven games of the 1927 season, compiling a career record of 7–11–6. He was also a professor of mathematics at Auburn in the 1930s.

Playing career

A native of

Pittsview, Alabama Pittsview, at one time known as Pittsboro, is an unincorporated community in Russell County, Alabama, United States. Geography Pittsview is located at . The community is located in rural southern Russell County. U.S. Route 431 passes just west ...

, Pitts was a prominent

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

for coach

Mike Donahue Michael Joseph "Iron Mike" Donahue (June 14, 1876 – December 11, 1960) was an American football player, coach of football, basketball, baseball, tennis, track, soccer, and golf, and a college athletics administrator. He served as the head fo ...

Auburn Tigers football The Auburn Tigers football program represents Auburn University in the sport of American college football. Auburn competes in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Western Division ...

team in

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 ...

and

1914 This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...

. He entered Auburn at the age of 15, having only read about football. Pitts was selected All-Southern and was a member of an All-time Auburn Tigers football team selected in 1935, as well as coach Donahue's all-time Auburn team. One writer claims "Auburn had a lot of great football teams, but there may not have been one greater than the 1913–1914 team." Pitts weighed some 190 pounds.

Army

Pitts later served as a colonel in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

during World War II. In late 1958, he had his larynx removed during surgery for cancer."He Can't Talk Or Eat Food, But 'Boozer' Writes Poems", ''The Morning Herald'', Thursday, December 31, 1959, Hagerstown, Maryland One of his sons, John E. Pitts, Jr. was a brigadier general in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

Head coaching record

Selected works

Notes

External links