Benjamin Dibblee

{{Short description|American football player and coach (1876–1945)}}

{{Infobox college coach

| name = Benjamin Dibblee

| image = Dibblee Harvard.png

| alt =

| caption = Dibblee pictured in The Official National Collegiate Athletic Association football guide, 1899

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1876|7|8}}

| birth_place = Ross, California, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1945|11|11|1876|7|8}}

| death_place = near Fairfield, California, U.S.

| alma_mater =

| player_years1 = 1896–1898

| player_team1 = Harvard

| player_positions = Halfback

| coach_years1 = 1899–1900

| coach_team1 = Harvard

| overall_record = 20–1–1

| bowl_record =

| tournament_record =

| championships = 1 national (1899)

| awards =

2× Consensus All-American (1897, 1898)

| coaching_records =

}}

Benjamin Harrison Dibblee (July 8, 1876 – November 11, 1945){{cite book|title=California Historical Society Quarterly|author=California Historical Society|date=1946|issue=v. 25–26|publisher=California Historical Society.|issn=0008-1175|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xcg1AAAAIAAJ|accessdate=April 8, 2015}}{{cite book|title=The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and of the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time|author=White, J.T.|date=1967|volume=35|publisher=University Microfilms|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kQzYAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=April 8, 2015}} was an American college football player and coach. He played halfback for Harvard University from 1896 to 1898, and was a consensus All-American in 1897 and 1898. Dibblee served as the head football coach for Harvard from 1899 to 1900, compiling a 20–1–1. His 1899 team was retroactively recognized as a national champion by a number of selectors.

Dibblee attended preparatory school at the Groton School where he played on the football team and took a prominent role in athletics.{{cite news|title=Five Leading Football Players Who Will Command The Elevens of the Big Five|newspaper=New York World|date=September 26, 1898}} Dibblee was small for a football player, even by the standards of the 1890s, standing 5 feet, 8-8½ inches, and weighing only 156 pounds. He enrolled at Harvard in 1895 and played on the freshman football team that year. In 1896, he played on the varsity team where he played in one or two games at fullback. He was a starter for Harvard throughout his junior season in 1897. As a senior in 1898, Dibblee was selected as captain of Harvard's football team and as a first-team All-American by Walter Camp,{{cite news|title=Camp's 1898 All-America Teams|work=Evening Independent|date=November 21, 1930}} Caspar Whitney for Harper's Weekly,{{cite news|title=All-American Eleven of 1898|newspaper=Harper's Weekly|year=1898}} the Syracuse Herald,{{cite news|title=All-American Eleven|newspaper=Sunday Herald|location=Syracuse, New York|date=November 27, 1898}} The Sun,{{cite news|title=All American Team What Janeway of Princeton Thinks of This Year's Football Players|newspaper=New Haven Evening Register|date=November 24, 1898}} and the New York Evening Telegram.{{cite news|title=Another All-American Team|newspaper=The Philadelphia Inquirer|date=November 29, 1898}} In late November 1897, Dibblee was elected by his teammates as the captain of the 1898 Harvard football team.{{cite news|title=Dibblee To Captain Harvard: Crimson Yield the Palm to Pennsylvania|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 21, 1897|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1897/11/21/102099785.pdf }}

In March 1899, Dibblee was appointed as head coach of the Harvard football team.{{cite news |author= |title=To Coach Harvard's Team. Benjamin H. Dibblee, a California Boy, Is Appointed. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2405008/the_san_francisco_call/ |newspaper=San Francisco Call |location=San Francisco, California |date=April 1, 1899 |page=3 |access-date=May 13, 2015 }} As of 1913, Dibblee was the Pacific coast manager for a firm of brokers.{{cite news|title=Caminetti Trial Gets Quick Start|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 23, 1913|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1913/08/28/100404863.pdf }} Dibblee died on November 11, 1945, at the Joy Island Duck club near Fairfield, California.{{cite news |title=Benj. Dibblee Is Found Dead|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2405052/the_times/ |newspaper=The Times |location=San Mateo, California |agency=Associated Press |date=November 12, 1945 |page=7 |access-date=May 13, 2015 |via=Newspapers.com {{Open access}} }}