Walter Merritt Riggs (January 24, 1873 – January 22, 1924) was the president of

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enro ...

from 1910 to 1924 and the "father of Clemson football" coaching the first

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team for what was then Clemson College. Riggs was president of Clemson during one of its most challenging times, during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, when enrollment dropped due to students joining the military or going home to help on family farms. Riggs graduated from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University) with a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1892 and was a member of Auburn's first football team. He was also president of his class, director of the

glee club A glee club in the United States is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs by trios or quartets. In the late 19th century it w ...

, and a member of

Phi Delta Theta Phi Delta Theta (), commonly known as Phi Delt, is an international secret and social fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, along with Beta Theta Pi and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad ...

fraternity while at Auburn. Riggs was the second president of the

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 ...

, taking over for

William Lofland Dudley William Lofland Dudley (April 16, 1859 – September 8, 1914) was an American chemistry professor at both the University of Cincinnati and Vanderbilt University and an athletics pioneer during the Progressive Era. At Vanderbilt, he was appoint ...

in 1912. Riggs Hall, which is the home of Clemson's College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences, is named in his honor.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* 1873 births 1924 deaths 19th-century players of American football American football ends Auburn Tigers baseball players Auburn Tigers football players Clemson Tigers athletic directors Clemson Tigers football coaches Presidents of Clemson University People from Orangeburg, South Carolina {{1890s-collegefootball-coach-stub