Tillie Lamar

Lamar was born on October 4, 1865, in Augusta, Georgia, to Gazaway DeRosset Lamar and Maria Cumming.

The season was notable for one of the most celebrated football plays of the 19th century - a 90-yard punt return by Lamar of Princeton in the closing minutes of the game against Yale. Trailing 5-0, Princeton dropped two men back to receive a Yale punt. The punt glanced off one returner's shoulder and was caught by the other, Lamar, on the dead run.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jboJTyrkJagC&q=Tillie+Lamar+Princeton+1885&pg=PA15|author=Mark F. Bernstein|page=15|title=Princeton Football|year=2009|isbn=9780738565842}} Lamar streaked down the left sideline, until hemmed in by two Princeton players, then cut sharply to the middle of the field, ducking under their arms and breaking loose for the touchdown. After the controversy of a darkness-shortened Yale-Princeton championship game the year before that was ruled "no contest," a record crowd turned out for the 1885 game. For the first time, the game was played on one of the campuses instead of at a neutral site, and emerged as a major social event, attracting ladies to its audience as well as students and male spectators.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/footballamerica00davigoog|quote=parke davis football intercollegiate game.|title=Football, the American Intercollegiate Game|publisher=c. Scribner's sons|year=1911|author=Parke H. Davis|author-link=Parke H. Davis}} The Lamar punt return furnished the most spectacular ending to any football game played to that point, and did much to popularize the sport of college football to the general public.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FxVbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA187|page=187|volume=26|journal=Princeton Alumni Weekly|date=November 18, 1925|author=Parke H. Davis|author-link=Parke H. Davis|title=Lamar's Run, Forty Years Ago}} The play is referred to as the "Lamar run" and it is considered one of the most notable plays of that century; The game is also often referred to as the "Lamar game". His run against Yale in 1885 gave Princeton its only victory over Yale in a decade (1879 - 1888).{{cite web|url=http://footballofyore.blogspot.com/2014/07/henry-tillie-lamar-cabinet-card.html|title=Henry "Tillie" Lamar Cabinet Card}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xiyeAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA83|page=83|title=12 Monkeys & A Green Jacket|author=Robert A. Mullins|year=2014|isbn=9781493189717}}

Lamar, the grandson of Henry Cumming who conceived of and promoted the construction of the Augusta Canal, died by drowning at the opening of the canal connecting Lake Olmstead with the Savannah River, near Augusta, Georgia.{{cite journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qywBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA441|journal=The University Magazine|title=Henry Cummings Lamar|author=Marion M. Miller|date=November 21, 1885|page=441|volume=4}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Find a Grave|27133259}}

{{1884 Princeton Tigers football navbox}}

{{1885 Princeton Tigers football navbox}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamar, Tillie}}

Category:1865 births

Category:1891 deaths

Category:19th-century players of American football

Category:American football halfbacks

Category:Princeton Tigers football players

Category:Players of American football from Augusta, Georgia

Category:Deaths by drowning in the United States