Neil "Shorty" McMillan (September 10, 1890 – October 1964) 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 ...

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 ...

from 1910–1911.

Playing career

A native of

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

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 ...

, McMillan enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1909 and led the freshman football team to an undefeated season, leading to high expectations for the 1910 team under his leadership. McMillan started all six games for Michigan in the 1910 season in which the Wolverines went undefeated but also played in three tie games for a final record of 3–0–3. In his first year of

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 ...

, McMillan developed a reputation as an "exceptional quarter back", and Michigan's head coach

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 ...

said "he never had a man handle the work in that position as well as did McMillan in his first year." His accomplishments were considered all the more impressive when it was discovered that he had played the hardest home games of the 1910 season with a broken shoulder. McMillan was credited with a tough performance in Michigan's scoreless tie with Penn. The ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' reported: "Little McMillan was hurt several times, but he always 'came back.'" In the final game of the 1910 season, Michigan defeated

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

6 to 0, as "two beautifully executed forward passes" from McMillan to left end Stanley Borleske won the game for Michigan. Michigan Wolverines football 1911

Prior to the start of the 1911 football season, there were doubts as to whether McMillan would return, as he considered quitting college to work in his father's office in

. McMillan did return to Michigan and was given the starting quarterback job. He led the Wolverines to a 4–0 record in the first four games of the season, outscoring the opposition 67 to 11, including a 19–0 shutout against

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

. However, McMillan sustained a dislocated knee during a practice scrimmage in early November 1911, and James Craig was forced to take over at the quarterback spot. A newspaper report in late November indicated that McMillan was still on the "hospital list" with a "badly bruised side." Without McMillan in the starting lineup, the Wolverines went 1–1–2 in the final four games of the season. In a career shortened by injury, McMillan started only ten games at quarterback, but never lost a game he started. The Wolverines' record in games with McMillan as the starting quarterback was 7–0–3.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McMillan, Shorty 1890 births 1964 deaths American football quarterbacks Michigan Wolverines football players Players of American football from Detroit