Elroy Bert Coan III (July 2, 1940 – February 19, 2022) was an

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

player. He is most notable because of his extraordinary speed (9.4 in the

100-yard dash The 100-yard dash is a track and field sprint event of . It was part of the Commonwealth Games until 1970, and was included in the triathlon of the Olympics in 1904. It is not generally used in international events, replaced by the 100- ...

) and size (, ).

Career

Coan was the central figure in a dispute over the 1960

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

game between the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

Jayhawks and the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

Tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is tradition ...

, the second-longest-running rivalry in college football (known as the " Border War"). Coan played for Kansas – and helped the Jayhawks win the 1960 game by a score of 23–7 over Missouri, then-ranked #1. After the Kansas Athletic Department delayed the hearing for over a year, on December 8, 1960 the Big Eight declared Coan ineligible, due to a recruiting violation by

Bud Adams Kenneth Stanley "Bud" Adams Jr. (January 3, 1923 – October 21, 2013) was an American businessman who was the founder and owner of the Houston Oilers of the American Football League (AFL), of which he was also a co-founder. The franchise eve ...

while Coan was still at

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private university, private research university in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison Clark, Addison and Randolph Clark as the AddRan Male & Female College. It i ...

(TCU) and forfeited the game to Missouri—thus erasing Missouri's only loss on the field that year. Missouri counts the 1960 game as a win by forfeit, thus giving it the only undefeated and untied season in school history. The Big Eight also credited the 1960 game to Missouri. However, Kansas (and the NCAA) count the game as a Kansas victory. Ever since, the two universities have disputed the overall win–loss record in the long-running series. Coan went on to play in 72 games in seven seasons in the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...

; the first season with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team in the National Football League (NFL). The Chargers played in San Diego, California from 1961 until 2016, before relocating back to the Greater Los Angeles area, where the franch ...

, and the rest with the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division. Established in 1959 ...

. Coan died in

Garrison, Texas Garrison is a small town in Nacogdoches County, Texas, United States. The population was 789 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Garrison may be named for an early settler, Captain Zadock Bonner "Zed" Garrison (April 20, 1829 ...

, on February 19, 2022, at the age of 81.

References

External links

* 1940 births 2022 deaths American football halfbacks American Football League players Kansas City Chiefs players Kansas Jayhawks football players San Diego Chargers players TCU Horned Frogs football players Pasadena High School (Pasadena, Texas) alumni People from Timpson, Texas Players of American football from Harris County, Texas {{runningback-1940s-stub