Colby Edmund "Babe" Slater (April 30, 1896 – January 30, 1965) was an American

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player who captained the

United States national rugby union team The United States men's national rugby union team represents the United States in men's international rugby union. Nicknamed the Eagles, it is controlled by USA Rugby, the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United Stat ...

that won the gold medal at the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (french: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1924), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad (french: Jeux de la VIIIe olympiade) and also known as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The op ...

. He was a member of the American rugby union team, which won the gold medal in 1920 and 1924.

Biography

Colby Slater was born on April 30, 1896, in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, the son and youngest of four children of John Slater and Louise Slater (born Chenery). With his older brother, Norman, Slater attended Berkeley High School and played for the school's rugby team in 1912 and 1913, winning a state championship in 1912. In 1914, Slater enrolled at the University Farm School in

Davis, California Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...

. (The University Farm School was then a branch of the College of Agriculture at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and is considered a precursor to the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, which claims him as an alumnus.) Slater graduated from the University Farm School in May 1917, and enlisted in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

shortly thereafter. He served with the

Medical Corps A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians. List of medical corps The following organizations are examples of medi ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. In 1919, Slater returned to

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

and began his career as a

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

. In 2011, Slater was inducted twice into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, as a member of both the 1920 and 1924 national teams. In 2012, Slater was again inducted into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame, but this time as an individual player.

References

External links

profileColby E. “Babe” Slater Papers
a
Special Collections Dept.
University Library, University of California, Davis {{DEFAULTSORT:Slater, Colby 1896 births 1965 deaths University of California, Davis alumni American rugby union players Rugby union players at the 1924 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the United States in rugby United States international rugby union players Medalists at the 1924 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1920 Summer Olympics United States Army personnel of World War I Farmers from California