Beautiful early photo of the 1886 University of California football team. They went 6-2-1 mainly playing athletic clubs available in the area. During this time most of the West Coast schools did not have football teams and most of the action was on the east coast.
John Heisman is pictured in his University of Pennsylvania sweater where he played from 1889-91. He went on to a long HOF coaching career for many colleges including a 1917 Georgia Tech national championship. The Heisman trophy given out to the top college football player is named after him.
Here is a team photo of the 1887 Philips Academy football squad. Future Yale player and early Stanford coach C.D. Bliss is pictured here.
This is an early Cornell University football player I haven’t been able to identify. I especially like the mounted cabinet with the Cornell flag on it. I could find similar examples in the mid 1890s with other players in similar poses with the same sweater. One such player was Glen Pop Warner who was the captain of the football team in this era.
Adams Academy started in 1872 in Quincy, Massachusetts. Former President John Adams gave the land and money to help start the school. The Adams Academy was used to prepare students for Harvard. They were rivals to Phillips Andover and Exeter. I acquired this image in a group of images from Edward Allen Pease who is seen laying at the bottom of the image. He later attended Harvard university and graduated in 1888.
This is undoubtedly one of the best teams Brown put together in the 19th century. This was the first team to score on Yale and ended up tying the eventual National Champions 6-6 at home. On this team was the first All American Brown had yielded Dave Fultz. He led them to a national championship in baseball and went on to become a Major League Baseball player. Also on the team was college football hofer Eddie Robinson who went on to coach at Brown and eventually for the NFL Providence Steam Rollers
