Chigger Browne Explained

Chigger Browne
Birth Date:3 August 1888
Birth Place:Memphis, Tennessee
Death Place:Stockton, California
Player Years1:1908 - 1910
Player Team1:Sewanee
Player Positions:Quarterback
Coach Sport1:Track and field:
Coach Years2:1926 - 1927
Coach Team2:Florida
Coach Sport3:Football:
Coach Years4:1928
Coach Team4:Florida (intramurals)
Championships:SIAA championship (1909)
Awards:All-Southern (1909, 1910)
Sewanee All-Time Football Team

Alvin Lowell "Chigger" Browne[1] (August 3, 1888  - March 2, 1955) was a college football player and track coach.

Sewanee

Browne was a quarterback for the Sewanee Tigers of from 1908 to 1910. Browne also played baseball, basketball, and track.[2] He was twice selected All-Southern,[3] [4] and mentioned by Grantland Rice as one of the great little men of the sport, once weighing only 111 pounds.[5] He was most often listed as some 5 feet 8 inches tall and 125 pounds. Rice also said he was "harder to surround and tackle than a flea."[6] He could run 100 meters in 10 seconds flat.[7] At Sewanee he was a member of Kappa Alpha.[8]

1908

College Football Hall of Fame quarterback Harry Van Surdam, coach of the 1908 team, said of Browne, he "was the greatest quarterback that I have ever seen in my 50 years of being connected with football as a coach and official . . . he was fast as lightning and wasn't afraid of anything. Chigger was so small that we had to keep him taped up to prevent him from getting broken up . . . We had only 18 men on the squad. If we wanted to scrimmage we had to bend the line around."

1909

Browne was quarterback on the SIAA champion 1909 team.

Coaching career

University of Florida

He coached the Florida Gators track team of the University of Florida in 1926 and 1927.[9]

See also

Notes and References

  1. 1956 . Deaths . Sewanee Alumni News . 14.
  2. 1952 . Brown Is All-Time Tiger Great . Sewanee Alumni News . 15.
  3. 2011 . National and Southern Honors . Sewanee Football Media Guide . 31.
  4. e. g. News: December 8, 1910 . All S. I. A. A. Team. . Times-Picayune .
  5. News: Grantland Rice . Grantland Rice . January 31, 1942 . Hogan and Hinkey Rate Among Best Little Men . The Miami News .
  6. News: Grantland Rice . June 18, 1937 . Size Doesn't Make Athlete . The Milwaukee Journal .
  7. News: November 11, 1908 . Sewanee Here On Saturday . Atlanta Constitution.
  8. 1909 . Alpha-Alpha . The Kappa Alpha Journal . 27 . 2 . 200.
  9. Book: Old Yearbook Filled with Future Leaders . October 17, 1992 . Ocala Star Banner.