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), 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 with ...

player. He is most notable because of his extraordinary speed (9.4 in the 100-yard dash) and size (, ).

Career

Coan was the central figure in a dispute over the 1960

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

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, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

Jayhawks and the

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

Tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

, 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. But later, 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 Tennessee Titans, a National Football League franchise. A member of the Cherokee Nation who originally mad ...

while Coan was still at

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private research university in Fort Worth, Texas. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison and Randolph Clark as the Add-Ran Male & Female College. It is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples ...

(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, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. ...

; the first season with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

, 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 club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The tea ...

. Coan died in

Garrison, Texas Garrison is a small town in Nacogdoches County, Texas, United States. The population was 789 at the 2020 census. History Garrison may be named for an early settler, Captain Zadock Bonner "Zed" Garrison (April 20, 1829 – January 9, 1909). Capt ...

, on February 19, 2022, at the age of 81.Elroy Bert Coan obituary
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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 Texas {{runningback-1940s-stub