Tillie Lamar

Tillie Lamar

Henry "Tillie" Lamar cabinet card.
Princeton Tigers
Position	Halfback
Class	1886
Career history
College	Princeton (1884–1885)
Personal information
Date of birth	October 4, 1865
Place of birth	Augusta, Georgia
Date of death	March 10, 1891 (aged 25)
Place of death	Augusta, Georgia
Career highlights and awards
National championship (1885)

Henry Cummings "Tillie" Lamar (October 4, 1865 – March 10, 1891) was a college football player.^[1][2]

Early years

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

Princeton

1885

The season was notable for one of the most celebrated football plays of the 19th century - a 90-yard punt return by Henry "Tillie" 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.^[3] 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.^[4] 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.^[5] 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).^[6][7]

Death

Lamar died by drowning at the opening of the canal connecting Lake Olmstead with the Savannah River, near Augusta, Georgia.^[8]

References

1. "Sporting Comment" (PDF). The Auburn Citizen. November 21, 1911.
2. Athletics at Princeton: A History. p. 594.
3. Mark F. Bernstein. Princeton Football. p. 15.
4. Parke H. Davis. Football, the American Intercollegiate Game.
5. Parke H. Davis (November 18, 1925). "Lamar's Run, Forty Years Ago". Princeton Alumni Weekly 26: 187.
6. "Henry "Tillie" Lamar Cabinet Card".
7. Robert A. Mullins. 12 Monkeys & A Green Jacket. p. 83.
8. Marion M. Miller (November 21, 1885). "Henry Cummings Lamar". The University Magazine 4: 441.

External links

• Tillie Lamar at Find a Grave