Edgar Lawrence Kaw (January 18, 1897 – December 13, 1971) 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 attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he was a prominent halfback on coach

Gil Dobie Robert Gilmour "Gloomy Gil" Dobie (January 21, 1878 – December 23, 1948) was an American football player and coach. Over a period of 33 years, he served as the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State ...

Cornell Big Red football The Cornell Big Red football team represents Cornell University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) college football competition as a member of the Ivy League. It is one of the ol ...

team, graduating in 1923. He was a shifty open-field runner known as one of the sport's greatest. His stride had one foot farther than the other. Kaw scored 90 points in

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

. That year, Cornell beat Penn 41–0 in the mud, and Kaw scored five touchdowns. Kaw "skipped over the ooze and water as if he were running on a cinder track, sidestepping a small lake and a Penn tackler with one and the same motion." He was elected into the

Sphinx Head Society The Sphinx Head Society is the oldest senior honor society at Cornell University. Sphinx Head recognizes Cornell senior men and women who have demonstrated respectable strength of character on top of a dedication to leadership and service at Corn ...

during his senior year. Kaw played 11 games for the

Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen Fiel ...

in 1924. In 1956, Kaw, then a resident of

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, was inducted into 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 ...

. He was flown to New York and inducted into the Hall of Fame during a halftime ceremony at the Cornell–Harvard game in October 1956. He died in

Walnut Creek, California Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland. With a total population of 70,127 per the 2020 census, Walnut Creek ser ...

in 1971.

References

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* * 1897 births 1971 deaths American football halfbacks Buffalo Bisons (NFL) players Cornell Big Red football players St. Lawrence Saints baseball coaches St. Lawrence Saints football coaches St. Lawrence Saints men's basketball coaches All-American college football players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Sportspeople from Houston Sports coaches from Minneapolis Coaches of American football from Minnesota Players of American football from Minneapolis Players of American football from Houston Baseball coaches from Minnesota Basketball coaches from Minnesota Baseball coaches from Texas Basketball coaches from Texas {{collegefootball-player-stub