Lucius Horatio "Ray" Biglow III (''often spelled Bigelow''; February 28, 1885 – July 9, 1961) 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 played right guard for

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

from 1905 to 1907. He was selected as an All-American in both 1906 and 1907 and served as

Yale Bulldogs football The Yale Bulldogs football program represents Yale University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Yale's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun competi ...

coach in 1908.

Biography

Biglow was born on February 28, 1885 in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

to Lucius Horatio Biglow II and Susan Ann (née Moser) Biglow. He was raised in Morristown, New Jersey and attended the

Lawrenceville School The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational preparatory school for boarding and day students located in the Lawrenceville section of Lawrence Township, in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. Lawrenceville is a member of the Eight Scho ...

. He later enrolled at

, where he graduated in 1908 and was a member of

Skull and Bones Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...

. He married Marian Chandler Yeaw; and they had one son, Lucius Horatio, Jr.

College athletics

At Yale, he was the right guard on the school's football team for three years. He also played point on the ice hockey team for two years, helping the Elis win the Intercollegiate Championship in

1908 Events January * January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica. * January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 4 ...

. Biglow was selected as an All-American in 1906 and unanimously elected as the captain of Yale's 1907 championship football team. He was also tapped for Yale's

society in 1906. A November 1907 newspaper article said of Biglow:

"Yale's captain is sturdy right tackle Bigelow. ... Bigelow is typically a Yale football product. During his prep school at Lawrenceville he failed to even make a place on the minor aggregation.

Biglow was also on the Yale crew one year. Despite having "pulled the strongest oar in the varsity shell" during his one year competing on the crew, his parents opposed his rowing any longer.

Career

Yale football coach

Biglow's parents wished for him to commence a business career upon his graduation in 1908, leading him to decline to follow the Yale tradition of having the football team captain return the following fall as the team's coach. However, in January 1908, Yale's new football team captain Robert Burch announced that he had persuaded Biglow to return in the fall as Yale's head football coach. As Yale's coach, Biglow advocated better moral standards in college athletics:

"'The time was,' says Ray Biglow, former captain of the Yale team and now its coach, 'when the best fellow in college was he who could drink all his fellows under the table. I venture to say that two-thirds of the men on the great amateur baseball and football teams now are either out-and-out Christians or morally clean.'"

Biglow served in the position as Yale's football coach for one year.

US Army

Company A 105th Machine Gun Battalion Camp Wadsworth SC

Biglow enlisted in the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in December, 1909, in Troop 1, Squadron A Cavalry, New York City. He attained the rank of 2nd Lieutenant with the 105th machine gun battalion of Squadron A in April of 1917. He was promoted to captain of Company A in 1818 and saw action in engagements at several locations in France during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He was twice cited for his effective leadership, once while sustaining fire while his men were suffering losses and once for leadership and courage for pushing his machine gun squad forward in battle. He was honorably discharged in April of 1919.

Law and publishing

Biglow graduated from Columbia Law school in 1911 and embarked on a career in law, upon his discharge from the US Army. He joined his father's New York publishing company L.H. Bigelow & Company, printers and publishers, and resided successively in Plainfield and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Legacy

In 1912, a newspaper article on the greatest football players produced by Yale referred to the "brilliant Ray Bigelow" who was "always just a little better than anyone than any who played against him." Biglow remained an active supporter of Yale football and, in 1915, created a "sensation" when he advocated hiring of Foster Sanford as the school's head football coach in a letter to the Yale Daily News. Biglow died after a long illness at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1961 at the age of 76.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Biglow, Lucius Horatio 1885 births 1961 deaths All-American college football players American football tackles Yale Bulldogs football players Yale Bulldogs football coaches Sportspeople from Brooklyn Players of American football from New York City People from Morristown, New Jersey Players of American football from New Jersey Yale Bulldogs men's ice hockey players Ice hockey forwards Ice hockey players from New York (state) Yale Bulldogs rowers Lawrenceville School alumni