Chris "Red" Cagle

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 1960

University: UL-Lafayette

Induction Year: 1960

In the history of the United States military Academy at West Point, three cadets have won All-America football honors three consecutive years.

Two of them were Felix “Doc” Blanchard and Glenn Davis, who won the Heisman Trophy in successive years in 1945 and 1946.

The other was Christian Keener Cagle of Merryville, La.

Before he went to West Point, Cagle was a triple threat tailback for Southwestern Louisiana Institute through three seasons—1923, 1924 and 1925.

He returned 10 kicks for touchdowns during those three seasons, setting a career scoring record of 182 points. In 1923, as an 18-year-old freshman at SLI, Cagle threw a scare into LSU with a superb passing performance and kicked a field goal that gave the Lafayette team a 3-0 lead until the fourth quarter—when the Tigers managed to salvage a 7-3 victory with a desperation pass.

The following year, Cagle had 752 yards rushing in 61 carries, an average of 12.3 yards per attempt and completed 53.9 percent of his passes for 859 yards. He also made 20 of 25 drop kick field goals.

He lead SLI to a 7-2 record and the Louisiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association championship in 1925, scoring 108 points. In one game he completed 22 of 33 passes in a 38-0 loss to LSU.

“He was the greatest player ever,” recalled former SLI teammate Bernard Lange. “When Cagle would run, you never were sure where his next step would land. He had thighs as big as watermelons, and they allowed him to change directions in mid-air.”

A mischievous schoolboy prank played a major role in developing Cagle’s tremendous thighs. A less gifted student might have been expelled by the Merryville High principal, but Cagle’s presence on the football field was necessary. Instead of being expelled, he was kicked off the school bus—and he turned the punishment into a conditioning drill by racing the bus over the four miles between his home and the school each day, catching up each time the bus stopped to pick up passengers. Those daily jaunts developed the speed, power and endurance that made him a complete football player.

At West Point, Cagle was the first football player selected on Grantland Rice’s All-America team three years in a row. Before the existence of the Heisman Trophy, Cagle was selected college Player of the Year. A half century later, Sports Illustrated named Cagle, George Gipp of Notre Dame, Red Grange of Illinois and Ernie Nevers of Stanford as the backfield on the Collegiate Football Team of the 1920s.

Cagle didn’t play against Gipp, but he played a key role in the “win on for the Gipper” game between Notre Dame and Army at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 10, 1928.

Army, coached by Lawrence “Biff” Jones, was heavily favored over a Notre Dame team that had lost two of its first six games. But before the game, Rochne told his team about the final request of Gipp, an All-American who died of pneumonia shortly after his last game in 1920.

“The day before he died,” Rockne said, “George Gipp asked me to wait until the situation seemed hopeless—then ask a Notre Dame team to go out and beat Army for him. This is the day, and you are the team.”

After a scoreless first half, Cagle sparked an Army drive to the game’s first touchdown with runs of eight and 10 yards, and a perfect 40-yard pass to Ed Messenger. But Notre Dame fought back with touchdowns by Jack Chevigny and Johnny “One Play” Brien to take a 12-6 lead.

The Army team wasn’t finished. Cagle’s 55-yard kickoff return gave the cadets a scoring opportunity in the final minutes of play. But Cagle, who had played the entire game, collapsed at the 10 yard-line because of exhaustion and was carried from the field. The game ended two plays later—with Army one yard away from a tying touchdown.

In other 1928 games, Cagle led Army past Southern Methodist University 14-13 and sparked the cadets to their first-ever victory over Harvard (15-0) and a 18-6 romp past Yale, scoring on 51 and 76 yards in the latter game. After the loss to Notre Dame, Army defeated previously unbeaten Nebraska, the Big Six champion, 13-3 as Cagle’s 37-yard touchdown run put the cadets ahead to stay in the third quarter.

The sandy-haired Cagle picked up the nickname “Red” at West Point, serving as captain of the 1929 Army team.

“When a player is captain, quarterback, No. 1 runner, No. 1 passer, No. 1 punter and No. 1 field goal kicker,” wrote New Orleans sports writer Pie Dufour, “he has to be pretty good in whatever league he plays.”

Cagle resigned from the academy because his secret marriage to Marian Mumford Haile while he was still a student violated the West Point code which specified that no cadet could possess a “horse, mustache or wife.”

He played pro football for six years—three of them with the New York Giants—and later coached at Mississippi A&M (which became Mississippi State) and was part owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers pro football team with John “Shipwreck” Kelly.

Cagle was a department manager of the Fidelity Phoenix Fire Insurance Company in December of 1942 when he slipped on the icy steps of a New York subway and suffered a fractured skull. He died in a Queens hospital of complications (including pneumonia) following the accident. He was 37 years old.