Franklin Pierce Mount Pleasant Jr. (June 13, 1884 – April 12, 1937) was a Native

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 wi ...

player,

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

athlete, and coach of football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, 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 t ...

. 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 in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

at the

Carlisle Indian Industrial School The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, generally known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918. It took over the historic Carlisle ...

and

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = Jo ...

and graduated from Dickinson in 1910. He was the first Native American to graduate from Dickinson. He made the 1904 and 1908 US Olympic track teams, placing sixth in the

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

and long jump at the

1908 Summer Olympics The 1908 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the IV Olympiad and also known as London 1908) were an international multi-sport event held in London, England, United Kingdom, from 27 April to 31 October 1908. The 1908 Games were o ...

. Olympic Sports. Frank Mount Pleasant
, Sports Reference Mount Pleasant served as the head football coach at

Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Frank ...

(1910), Indiana Normal School, now

Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) is a public research university in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. As of fall 2021, the university enrolled 7,044 undergraduates and 1,865 postgraduates, for a total enrollment of 9,009 students. The uni ...

(1911–1913),

West Virginia Wesleyan College West Virginia Wesleyan College is a private college in Buckhannon, West Virginia. It has an enrollment of about 1,400 students from 35 U.S. states and 26 countries. The school was founded in 1890 by the West Virginia Conference of the Methodist E ...

(1914), and the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

(1915). He was also the head basketball coach at Franklin & Marshall for the 1910–11 season and the school's head baseball coach in the spring of 1911. After

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 which he served as a first lieutenant, he settled in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, where he worked odd jobs. But, to his credit, he was the person who put the spiral on the football.

Early life and athletic career

Franklin Pierce Mount Pleasant Jr., called Frank, was born into the nation on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in New York; it is the Sixth Nation of the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

. He was the son of Tribal Chief John (aka Frank Senior) and Rachael. At a time when federal Indian policy emphasized assimilation, Mount Pleasant was sent as a child to be educated at Native American boarding schools. (Note: Most Native American boarding schools were not yet established; Carlisle was the first in the 1890s. He more likely attended a religious mission school at that time.) He eventually attended the

in Pennsylvania from 1902 to 1907, where he competed as both a

long jumper The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a ...

on the track team and as 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 Am ...

and halfback on the football team. The 1907 Carlisle Indians team, coached by

Pop Warner Glenn Scobey Warner (April 5, 1871 – September 7, 1954), most commonly known as Pop Warner, was an American college football coach at various institutions who is responsible for several key aspects of the modern game. Included among his inn ...

went 10–1 with a 26–6 victory over the perennial powerhouse,

Harvard 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 ...

. The team's only loss of the season came against

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

, in a game in which Mount Pleasant did not play. His teammates included

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native ...

, future

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coa ...

r, and

Albert Exendine Albert Andrew "Ex" Exendine (January 7, 1884 – January 4, 1973) was an American football player, coach, and lawyer. He played college football at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School where he was an All-American end. Exendine served as the he ...

, future

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 vo ...

inductee. Despite being a second-team All-American, Mount Pleasant never played professional football; the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

(NFL) was not started until 1920. He did play semi-pro football in Buffalo. Mount Pleasant, under Coach Pop Warner, was arguably the first to throw the spiral pass. During college, Mount Pleasant tried out for the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

and became the first Carlisle student to qualify; he made 1908 U.S. Olympic track teams. At the 1908 Olympics in London, Mount Pleasant finished sixth in both the

and the long jump competitions. This ended his track and field career, leaving him with career bests of for the long jump and for the triple jump.

Coaching career

After the Olympics, Mount Pleasant completed his studies at

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = Jo ...

, becoming its first Native American graduate. He worked as the head football coach at

for the 1910 season. His coaching record at Franklin & Marshall was 4–3–2. For the following three years he was the head football coach at the Indiana Normal School, now

. His last two teams won state championships. Mount Pleasant moved to the

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

in 1915, where he coached the football team to a 3–4 season. Mount Pleasant's coaching career was cut short by

. He was commissioned and served as an officer, a

first lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a ...

Later life and death

After the war, Mount Pleasant settled in

, not far from the Tuscarora reservation. He played several years of semi-pro football with the Buffalo All-Stars. The team included many former college stars, including Tall Chief, a teammate at Carlisle Indian School. Mount Pleasant worked odd jobs throughout the remainder of his life. He enjoyed playing the piano. His death in 1937 is a mystery, as two policemen found him unconscious on a Buffalo sidewalk. He died three days later at Emergency Hospital. Initial reports indicated that Mount Pleasant sustained a fractured skull, "possibly by violence." But the next day, Francis M. Kujawa, the Buffalo medical examiner, ruled the death the result of an accidental fall.

Legacy and honors

Mount Pleasant was posthumously inducted into the American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame (1973), the Hall of Fame at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1998), and that of Dickinson College. In 2007

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Sci ...

in Southern California named a library after him."Culture of the Haudenosaunee" Colloquium, 13 April 2007, Chapman University
/ref>

Head coaching record

Football

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mount Pleasant, Frank 1884 births 1937 deaths American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks American male long jumpers American male triple jumpers American men's basketball coaches Athletes (track and field) at the 1908 Summer Olympics Basketball coaches from New York (state) Buffalo Bulls football coaches Carlisle Indians football players Dickinson Red Devils football players Franklin & Marshall Diplomats baseball coaches Franklin & Marshall Diplomats football coaches Franklin & Marshall Diplomats men's basketball coaches IUP Crimson Hawks football coaches West Virginia Wesleyan Bobcats football coaches College men's track and field athletes in the United States Olympic track and field athletes of the United States American military personnel of World War I United States Army officers Sportspeople from Buffalo, New York People from Niagara County, New York Tuscarora people Native American players of American football Players of American football from Buffalo, New York Track and field athletes from Buffalo, New York Native American United States military personnel