Mortimer "Bud" Sprague (September 8, 1904 – April 25, 1973) 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 was elected to the
College Football Hall of Fame
The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...
in 1970.
He was one of the eight children born to Minna and George Sprague, of the
Oak Cliff
Oak Cliff is a neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, that was formerly a separate town in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1901. It has since retained a distinct neighborhood identity as one of Dallas' older established neighborhoods.
Oak Cl ...
neighborhood in
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...
. Bud's father George served on the Dallas City Council and as the Mayor of Dallas from 1937 to 1939. Bud originally played on
University of Texas' varsity football team, and later transferred to the
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
to play out his eligibility for the
Army Black Knights
The Army Black Knights are the athletic teams that represent the United States Military Academy, located in West Point, New York. In sports contexts, since 2015, the teams are commonly referred to as Army. The Black Knights compete at the Nation ...
. Eventually Bud settled in the
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
neighborhood of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
and made his fortune in
maritime insurance. He named his son, Kurth Sprague, after his mentor.
References
1904 births
1973 deaths
All-American college football players
American football tackles
Army Black Knights football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Players of American football from Dallas
Texas Longhorns football players
People from Oak Cliff, Texas
Military personnel from Texas
{{collegefootball-player-stub