Walker Glenn "Bill" "Big Six" Carpenter (June 3, 1893 – September 24, 1956) 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 ...

tackle for

John Heisman John William Heisman ( ; October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College, Buchtel College ...

's Georgia Tech Golden Tornado of the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

. He and teammate Everett Strupper were the first players from the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States. The term is used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, plant ...

selected to an

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

team, in

1917 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's ...

. Carpenter was inducted into the Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame in 1965. He is also a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame and the Helms Football Hall of Fame.

Personal

Walker was born June 3, 1893, in

Newnan, Georgia Newnan is a city in and the county seat of Coweta County, Georgia, United States, about southwest of Atlanta. Its population was 42,549 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 33,039 in 2010 United States census, 2010. History N ...

, to Starling V. Carpenter and Glenn L. Camp. He was the father of American educator and university administrator Thomas Glenn Carpenter.

Georgia Tech

Carpenter entered The Georgia Institute of Technology in the fall of 1914, elected president of the freshman class. He graduated from Tech with a degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

Football

His coach

once said of Carpenter: "On three of Georgia Tech's greatest teams Bill Carpenter—Big Six—played right tackle in the manner that makes coaches believe that life is good. Even the coaches of the teams we walloped were given to saying that it was worth a beating to watch Bill." He was nominated though not selected for an ''Associated Press'' All-Time Southeast 1869-1919 era team.

1914 and 1915

His first year on the football team saw Carpenter suffer a serious injury during the

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

game which caused him to have one of his

kidney In humans, the kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped blood-filtering organ (anatomy), organs that are a multilobar, multipapillary form of mammalian kidneys, usually without signs of external lobulation. They are located on the left and rig ...

s removed. It was wondered if he would ever play football again. Carpenter defied the odds and stepped out on the field for the first game of 1915 against Mercer.

1916

Carpenter would be a starter the next year for the famous 222–0 defeat of

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Empire, British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that has been stored ...

1917

He was

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

of one of Tech's greatest teams in

, winning a

national championship A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or competition, contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the be ...

and outscoring opponents 491–17. He was responsible that year for training new recruits Si Bell, Bill Fincher, and Dan Whelchel.The Technique, Volume 7, Issue 1

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carpenter, Walker 1893 births 1956 deaths Players of American football from Newnan, Georgia American football ends American football tackles Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players All-Southern college football players Track and field athletes from Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's track and field athletes