Christian Keener "Red" Cagle (May 1, 1905 – December 26, 1942) was an American athlete who was a three time All-American in

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 ...

playing for the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

Army football team. A star halfback, Cagle's prominence landed him on the cover of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine in 1929. For five seasons, running from 1930 to 1934, Cagle played professional football in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

(NFL). His 1932 salary with the New York Football Giants was second highest in the entire league. The following year Cagle became a co-owner of the new

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californi ...

NFL franchise, for which he also played, selling his stake upon his retirement in 1934. Cagle 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.

College career

Cagle first starred at the

University of Louisiana at Lafayette The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, ULL, or UL) is a public research university in Lafayette, Louisiana. It has the largest enrollment within the nine-campus University of Louisiana System and the s ...

(then named Southwestern Louisiana Institute or SLI) from 1922 to 1925, where he earned a degree in arts and sciences. In his career at Southwestern Louisiana, he scored 235 points from touchdowns, extra points and field goals, a school record that lasted until 1989. His time at Southwestern Louisiana has him placed among the all-time greats of early

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

football. Besides being the football captain (1925), he also was a star in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

sports at Southwestern Louisiana, where he received a degree in arts and sciences. Cagle then played football for four years in the Army football team at the

, from 1926 to 1929, but did not graduate because he had secretly married in August 1928 in violation of Academy rules. He was forced to resign in May 1930. Known as the "Red Thunderbolt of West Point," he was an

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 halfback for the last three years. His longest runs were 75 yards against

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

, 1928; 70 yards against

Ohio Wesleyan Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) is a private liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1842 by methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents as a nonsectarian institution, and is a member of the Ohio Five – a consortium ...

, and 65 yards against Yale, 1929. In four years at Army he scored 169 points, averaged 6.4 yards per attempt in rushing and 26.4 yards on kickoff returns. As the team captain in 1929, he was featured on the September 23 cover of ''

'' magazine of that same year. Cagle was noted for playing with the chin strap loose from his helmet, and sometimes without helmet. Sportswriters liked to refer to him as "Onward Christian" because of his ability to advance the ball.

Professional career

Cagle played professional football for five seasons, including the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

from 1930 to 1932. During his final year with the Giants Cagel was the highest paid member of the team, earning a handsome $500 per game — second in the entire league to the $550 per game earned by superstar halfback

Red Grange Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "the Galloping Ghost" and "the Wheaton Iceman", was an American football halfback for the University of Illinois, the Chicago Bears, and the short-lived New York Yankees ...

of the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine ...

. In 1933, he and fellow former New York Giants player John Simms Kelly became co-owners of the NFL's

franchise. Cagle played for the team in 1933 and 1934. Dan Topping bought Cagle's half of the team in 1934.

Personal life

Born in Merryville, Louisiana, he was one of eight children, including five brothers and two sisters. Cagle was named after an uncle, who in turn was named after the late Bishop Christian Keener of the

Methodist church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

. He attended high school in Merryville, a small community about 20 miles (30 km) southwest of De Ridder. According to local legend, he was known for getting off the school bus and racing it to school, a race that he quite often won. The football field at Merryville High School is named Keener Cagle Field in his honor. He secretly married Marian Haile in 1928 after meeting her at Louisiana-Lafayette. Cagle died in 1942, at 37 years of age, from a peculiar mishap the day after

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

(December 26). He was discovered unconscious at the bottom of a

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

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stairwell. According to ''The Advertiser'' report, "Cagle tripped and fell the full length of a flight of subway steps."''The Advertiser'', December 29, 2004 He died three days later of a

fractured skull A skull fracture is a break in one or more of the eight bones that form the cranial portion of the skull, usually occurring as a result of blunt force trauma. If the force of the impact is excessive, the bone may fracture at or near the site of ...

. At the time of his death he had lived in a

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apartment house with his wife and was employed by an insurance company.

Head coaching record

References

Other source consulted

* ''College Football Historical Society,'' vol. 13, no. 1, November 1999.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cagle, Chris 1905 births 1942 deaths American football halfbacks American men's basketball players Army Black Knights football players Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL) players Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns football players Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball players Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns men's track and field athletes Mississippi State Bulldogs football coaches National Football League owners New York Giants players All-American college football players College Football Hall of Fame inductees People from DeRidder, Louisiana Coaches of American football from Louisiana Players of American football from Louisiana Basketball players from Louisiana Track and field athletes from Louisiana Accidental deaths from falls