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Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1976
- Class:
- 1892
Dr. John H. Lindsey '92
Hometown: Fall River, MA
Sport: Football
Year Inducted: 1976
Dr. John H. Lindsey '92, more than anyone else, was responsible for putting Brown football on a permanent basis. He was player, captain, manager, and coach - in short, he was practically the entire football organization. As a result, John Lindsey is known as the Father of Brown Football. Coming to the University from Fall River, where football had been played for some time, Lindsey found a Football Association that was long on talk but short on action. As a result, varsity football, which had a promising start in 1878, was confined almost completely to intramural activity by 1888. Lindsey jumped into the breach, set about organizing the players, got them out early enough in the fall so that a schedule could be compiled, did the scheduling, and bought the equipment. In his efforts to get Brown football on an active basis, Lindsey once dressed himself up as a sandwich man, with a placard front and back, and sauntered around campus with his placard serving as a reminder that King Football was still a struggling infant anxious for support from the student body. A classmate, Everett A. Bowen '92, said in 1954: "I appreciate him more now than I did then. It was his enthusiasm, hard work, and determination that finally aroused the college and the citizens of the town to appreciate football. He patiently welded a group of inexperienced boys into a cooperative team. He established football at Brown for the unbroken years ahead. Jack Lindsey, the immortal." Lindsey received his M.D. from Penn, served as a major in the Medical Corps in France during World War I, and later became a physician in Fall River, where he specialized in X-Ray work. Jack Lindsey died July 29, 1933 at age 63.
