Clinton Black

Cupid Black

Place of birth	New York, New York, United States
Career information
Position(s)	Guard
Career history
As player
1914-1917	Yale
Career highlights and awards
2x All American selection (1916, 1917)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	U.S. Navy
Years of service	1918-1919
Unit	USS President Lincoln
Battles/wars	World War I

Clinton Rutherford "Cupe" Black, Jr. (October 3, 1894^[1] – October 8, 1963) was an American football player.

Black enrolled at Yale University and, while there, played on the Yale Bulldogs football team. He was captain of the 1916 Yale Bulldogs^[2] and a consensus first-team choice for the 1916 College Football All-America Team.^[3] He wore #1 that year, the first time Yale donned numbers.^[4] In 1920 Black was rumoured to restart the Massillon Tigers pro football team, and enter the team in the newly formed American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League in 1922), however he later turned down the offer.^[5]

World War I

Black served in the United States Navy during World War I. During the war his ship the USS President Lincoln was hit by a torpedo, fired from a German U-Boat. While the Lincoln sank, Black made it into a lifeboat. Soon the German U-Boat surfaced and circled the life rafts. The sub's Captain, claimed to be a Yale alumnus who recognized Black and spoke with him. The sub later left the men to their lifeboats. They were all later rescued by the USS Warrington and transported to France. A previous report of the incident had the Captain as a Harvard graduate, who took Black on board and set the sub's course for Germany.^[6]

After the war, he became a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and thereafter went into the insurance business. He was the founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of C. R. Black Jr. Corporation, and insurance brokerage business in New York City. He was married and had two sons and a daughter. He died in 1963, aged 78 at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan.^[7]

References

1. Draft registration card for Clinton Rutherford Black, Jr., born October 3, 1894, in New York, New York. Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 [database on-line].
2. "Cupid Black Chosen Yale Football Captain for 1916". The Day (Afternoon ed.): 12. December 1, 1915.
3. "2012 NCAA Football Records: Consensus All-America Selections" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). 2012. p. 4. Retrieved August 15, 2014.
4. Sam Rubin. Yale Football. p. 46.
5. PFRA Research. "Associating in Obscurity 1920" (PDF). Coffin Corner (Professional Football Researchers Association): 1–6.
6. "YALE MAN ON U-BOAT?; Guy Bancroft Relates New Version of "Cupid" Black's Experience". New York Times: 5. November 23, 1918. Retrieved April 30, 2010.
7. "Clinton R. Black Jr., Insurance Broker". The New York Times. October 1963.