Douglas Alexander Farmer (January 22, 1916 – March 29, 1977) 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, medical doctor, and professor of medicine. He was a

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 ...

for the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

football team, attended

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

, and later served as a professor of medicine at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, and the

Yale School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

and as chief of the department of surgery at the

Hospital of Saint Raphael The Hospital of Saint Raphael or Saint Raphael Hospital, located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, was a 511-bed community teaching hospital founded by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth in 1907. On September 12, 2012, Yale New Hav ...

Early years

Farmer was born in 1916 in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, Manitoba, Canada. His parents were Frank Harvey Farmer and Amelia "Millie" Farmer. As a boy, he moved with his family to

Chippewa, Ontario Chippawa is a community located within the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario. The village was founded in 1850, and became part of the City of Niagara Falls, Ontario by amalgamation in 1970. It is located on the Canadian shore of the Niagara River ab ...

. He then immigrated to the United States at

Niagara Falls, New York Niagara Falls is a City (New York), city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagara ...

, in 1924. He attended high school in Hinsdale, Illinois.

University of Michigan

Farmer attended the

and received his undergraduate degree there in 1938. He played

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 ...

at Michigan from 1935 to 1937. He started all eight games as the

of the

1937 Michigan Wolverines football team The 1937 Michigan Wolverines football team was an American football team that represented the University of Michigan in the 1937 Big Ten Conference football season. In their ninth season under head coach Harry Kipke, the Wolverines compiled a 4 ...

. While at Michigan, he was also a member and president of the

Beta Theta Pi Beta Theta Pi (), commonly known as Beta, is a North American social fraternity that was founded in 1839 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. One of North America's oldest fraternities, as of 2022 it consists of 144 active chapters in the Unite ...

fraternity, president of the senior class (Class of 1938), and a member of the Sphinx and

Michigamua The Order of Angell, known for decades as Michigamua, was a senior honorary society recognizing student leaders and outstanding athletes at the University of Michigan. For most of its history, its practices reflected images of Native Americans d ...

. A profile of farmer in the 1938 University of Michigan yearbook described Farmer as follows: "Known by his fraternity brothers as 'Wife Beater,' by his friends as the 'Blooming Tory, and by practically ever woman on the campus as 'The Cutest Thing,' Doug Farmer is the man who called those

forward pass In several forms of football, a forward pass is the throwing of the ball in the direction in which the offensive team is trying to move, towards the defensive team's goal line. The forward pass is one of the main distinguishers between gridiron ...

es on his own two-yard line last fall. ... Farmer is a very versatile guy. Intelligent, too. From something known as Hinsdale, Ill. 'Pretty Muscles' is still a cosmopolite. He walks down State Street just as if he were used to a big town."1938 Michiganensian, p. 406.

Medical career

After graduating from Michigan, Farmer attended

. He graduated from medical school in 1942 and served in the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from 1942 to 1946. After the war, Farmer began practice as a surgeon in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. He was a professor of medicine at

Boston University School of Medicine The Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, formerly the Boston University School of Medicine, is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. Founded in 1848, the medical school was the first institution in the world ...

from 1954 to 1964 and later at

. He was also the chief of the department of surgery at the

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. He wrote 23 scientific papers and was a diplomate of the American Board of Surgeons and a

Fellow of the American College of Surgeons Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (or FACS) is a professional certification for a medical professional who has passed a set of criteria for education, qualification, and ethics required to join the American College of Surgeons. ''FACS'' ...

Family and later years

Farmer and his wife, Elizabeth, had three sons (Douglas, James, and Jeffrey) and two daughters (Judith and Nancy). He lived in Madison, Connecticut in his later years. He died in March 1977 at the Hospital of St. Raphael.Connecticut Department of Health. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2001 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003. Original data: Connecticut Department of Health. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2001. Hartford, CT, USA: Connecticut Department of Health.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farmer, Douglas 1916 births 1977 deaths American football quarterbacks Boston University faculty Harvard Medical School alumni Michigan Wolverines football players Yale School of Medicine faculty People from Hinsdale, Illinois Sportspeople from Winnipeg Players of American football from Illinois Canadian emigrants to the United States Players of American football from Manitoba