Frank Area Godchaux Jr. (December 27, 1901 – November 4, 1978) 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 golfer for the

Vanderbilt Commodores The Vanderbilt Commodores are the college athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. Vanderbilt fields 16 varsity teams (6 men's teams and 10 women's team ...

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

Early years

Frank Area Godchaux Jr. was born on December 27, 1901, in

Abbeville, Louisiana Abbeville is a city in, and the parish seat of, Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States, west of New Orleans and southwest of Baton Rouge. The population was 12,257 at the 2010 census. At the 2020 population estimates program, the populati ...

, to Frank Godchaux Sr. His father was a

letterman Letterman may refer to: * Letterman (sports), a classification of high school or college athlete in the United States People * David Letterman (born 1947), American television talk show host ** ''Late Night with David Letterman'', talk show that ...

and

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 Commodores on the 1899 team, transferring from

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

in 1897, and once President of the Louisiana Rice Milling Company, a $10,000,000 corporation.

Vanderbilt University

Godchaux Hall at

was named for his wife, Mary Ragland Godchaux. A

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

building constructed in 1925 as a home for the School of Nursing, it now houses faculty and administrative offices, the Center for Nursing Research, and the Helene Fuld Multimedia Center. It was named for Mary Ragland in 1971.

1921

He was a member of the 1921

Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) was one of the first collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. Twenty-seven of the current Division I FBS (formerly Division I-A) football programs were members of this conferen ...

(SIAA) champion football and baseball teams.

Football

Godchaux was a prominent

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

for

Dan McGugin Daniel Earle McGugin (July 29, 1879 – January 23, 1936) was an American football player and coach, as well as a lawyer. He served as the head football coach at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee from 1904 to 1917 and again from ...

Vanderbilt Commodores football The Vanderbilt Commodores football program represents Vanderbilt University in the sport of American football. The Commodores compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the East Divis ...

teams. On the 1921 football team Godchaux was its second leading scorer behind

Rupert Smith General Sir Rupert Anthony Smith, (born 13 December 1943) is a retired British Army officer and author of '' The Utility of Force''. He was a senior commander during the Gulf War, for which he was recognised with the award of the Distinguished ...

. Godchaux was the first son to follow in his father's footsteps as a Vanderbilt football player.

Baseball

On the 1921 baseball team, Frank Jr. was a

catcher Catcher is a Baseball positions, position in baseball and softball. When a Batter (baseball), batter takes their at bat, turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home plate, home) Umpire (baseball), umpire, and recei ...

References

External links

* 1901 births 1978 deaths American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks Players of American football from Louisiana Baseball players from Louisiana Baseball catchers Vanderbilt Commodores baseball players Vanderbilt Commodores football players People from Abbeville, Louisiana {{runningback-1900s-stub