Donald Munson Hamilton (November 14, 1887 – June 2, 1959) 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 ...

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

player and a football referee. As a two-year starter at

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, Hamilton amassed a record of 15–1–1. The highlight of the undefeated 1909 season was the school's first victory over

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

in nine tries—an 11–3 triumph over a very good

Fielding H. Yost Fielding Harris Yost (; April 30, 1871 – August 20, 1946) was an American football player, coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at: Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Nebraska, the University ...

team that earned Notre Dame the title "Champions of the West". In 1910, Hamilton's eligibility was suspended for having played professional baseball with the

Louisville Colonels The Louisville Colonels were a Major League Baseball team that also played in the American Association (AA) throughout that league's ten-year existence from 1882 until 1891. They were known as the Louisville Eclipse from 1882 to 1884, and as ...

, but he returned as a backup quarterback in 1911 and threw the school's first game-winning touchdown pass—a 35-yard strike to Lee Matthews—for a 6–0 victory against

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. After graduation, Hamilton played professionally in the

Ohio League The Ohio League was an informal and loose association of American football clubs active between 1902 and 1919 that competed for the Ohio Independent Championship (OIC). As the name implied, its teams were mostly based in Ohio. It is the direct pr ...

, first for the

Shelby Blues The Shelby Blues were an American football team based in Shelby, Ohio. The team played in the Ohio League from 1900 to 1919. In 1920, when the Ohio League became the APFA (now known as the National Football League), the Blues did not join but conti ...

in 1913, and then for the Canton Professionals/Bulldogs in 1914 and 1915. By the early 1920s, he had become a referee for pro games played in the

Ohio Valley The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinoi ...

, and in 1921 was banned from officiating games for the Ironton Tanks after admitting that he had watched them "more closely" than their opponents. By the mid-1930s, Hamilton had become a

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 ...

referee for the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

References

1887 births 1959 deaths American football quarterbacks College football officials Canton Bulldogs (Ohio League) players Canton Professionals players Louisville Colonels (minor league) players Notre Dame Fighting Irish football players Shelby Blues players Players of American football from Columbus, Ohio Baseball players from Columbus, Ohio {{quarterback-stub