John Moorehead

John Moorehead

Place of birth	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Career information
Position(s)	Center
College	Yale
Career history
As player
1890–1891	Allegheny Athletic Association
Career highlights and awards
2x W. Pennsylvania champ (1890, 1892) Helped Walter Camp develop football

John K. Moorehead, Jr. (sometimes spelled John Moorhead) was an American football player for Yale. He played alongside Walter Camp, the inventor of the modern game, during the late 1870s. He was also a member, and club president, of the Allegheny Athletic Association, an amateur football club which fielded the first recognized professional player William Heffelfinger.^[1] When Allegheny formed a football team in 1890, he took over the position of center. Meanwhile a fellow former Yale player, O. D. Thompson, took over as the club's manager and played tackle.^[2]

In a 1904 issue of The Independent, Walter Camp listed the following "leading players of the game" for the period 1876 to 1879. He named Moorehead as the top forwards in the game for those years.^[3]

John was also the father of John A. Moorehead and Donald Moorehead, both of whom attended Yale.^[4] John A. Moorehead would play halfback at Yale, graduate in 1904 and later coach football at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1907, John disinherited his son John A. Moorehead for eloping with his mother's French maid. Moorehead later reconciled with his son, after the funeral of his daughter, Miss Anne Katherine Moorhead, who was killed in the Bronx wreck on the New York Central Railroad.^[5]

References

1. Fox, Stephen (1994). Big Leagues: Professional Baseball, Football, and Basketball in National Memory. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-6896-3.
2. PFRA Research. "Three A’s for Football" (PDF). Coffin Corner (Professional Football Researchers Association): 1–4.
3. PFRA Research. "Camp and His Followers" (PDF). Coffin Corner (Professional Football Researchers Association): 1–5.
4. History of the Class of 1910, Yale College. Yale University. 1910.
5. "Young Moorhead Forgiven, Father Reconciled with His Son After Daughter's Funeral". New York Times (February 25). 1907.

Additional sources

• Riffenburgh, Beau and Bob Carroll (1989). "The Birth of Pro Football" (PDF). Coffin Corner (Professional Football Researchers Association) 11 (Annual): 1–30.
• Peterson, Robert W. (1997). Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-511913-4.