James Edward Blair (August 5, 1871 – March 8, 1913) 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 wi ...

player and coach and physician. He was early professional football player with the

Latrobe Athletic Association The Latrobe Athletic Association was a professional football team located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, from 1895 until 1909. A member of the unofficial Western Pennsylvania Professional Football Circuit, the team is best known for being the first f ...

. He later relocated to Burlington, New Jersey where he took a prominent part in the city council for a time and was a surgeon for the Third Battalion of the

New Jersey National Guard The New Jersey Army National Guard consists of more than 6,000 Citizen-Soldiers. The New Jersey Army National Guard is currently engaged in multiple worldwide and homeland missions. Units have deployed to Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Germ ...

. He was a charter member of the Burlington

Elks Lodge The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE; also often known as the Elks Lodge or simply The Elks) is an American fraternal order founded in 1868, originally as a social club in New York City. History The Elks began in 1868 as a so ...

and was a thirty-second degree Mason. He also was affiliated with the Sons of Veterans.

Football

Blair began his career with the Latrobe A. A. in 1895 as an amateur player. However, his major claim to fame came when a scheduling conflict led to him being replaced by

John Brallier John Kinport "Sal" Brallier (December 12, 1876 – September 17, 1960) was one of the first professional American football players. He was nationally acknowledged as the first openly paid professional football player when he was given $10 to play f ...

, who became the first openly professional football player. In 1895 Blair found himself in a scheduling conflict. Edward, who also played

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 ...

in nearby Greensburg, discovered it that the team's first football game against the Jeannette Athletic Association conflicted with a prior baseball commitment. Latrobe manager David Berry, who was now seeking a replacement for Blair, had heard of Brallier's performance as the Indiana Normal quarterback and signed him to play in the game for $10 plus expenses. Blair served as the head football coach at Sewanee: The University of the South in 1896.

College

Blair attended

Saint Vincent College Saint Vincent College is a private Benedictine college in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 by Boniface Wimmer, a monk from Bavaria, it is operated by the Benedictine monks of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the first Benedictine monastery in the ...

, located in Latrobe. He graduated from that school in 1892. Afterwards he attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

where he played college football and

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional p ...

. During his time at Penn, Blair played halfback on the football team and was a three year varsity player on the baseball team.

Family and death

Blair was born in 1871 to Mr. and Mrs. John C. Blair, both of whom outlived him. He had two brothers, both of whom he outlived: Charles Richard Blair and Paul Blair, who also played on the Latrobe team. Blair died from a heart ailment, on March 8, 1913, at Medico-Chi Hospital in Philadelphia. He had a wife and a son, who was seven at the time of his death.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Eddie 1871 births 1913 deaths 19th-century players of American football 19th-century baseball players 19th-century American physicians 20th-century American physicians American football halfbacks American football quarterbacks American Freemasons Latrobe Athletic Association players Penn Quakers baseball players Penn Quakers football players Sewanee Tigers football coaches Saint Vincent College alumni People from Burlington, New Jersey People from Latrobe, Pennsylvania Coaches of American football from Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania Baseball players from Pennsylvania New Jersey city council members Physicians from Philadelphia Physicians from New Jersey