page_title: William Wilson Talcott
section_title: University of Michigan
hierarchical_section_title: William Wilson Talcott / University of Michigan
caption_attribution_description: English: Sheet music for "The Victors" by Louis Elbel
context_page_description: William Wilson Talcott was an American football player, school teacher, newspaper publisher, and ice cream manufacturer.
  Talcott played college football for the University of Michigan in 1897 and 1898 and was the starting quarterback for the undefeated 1898 Michigan Wolverines football team. After graduating from Michigan, he worked as a school teacher in Illinois and Michigan.
  He entered the newspaper publishing business in 1905 and published The Englewood Economist from September 1906 to January 1918. From 1918 to 1920, he was the business manager of the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune. He later went into the ice cream business in Chicago.
  In August 1922, Talcott led a legal battle with the head of a so-called "love cult" with which his wife had become involved. The legal battle received national newspaper coverage. When his wife refused to part ways with the cult, Talcott committed suicide by jumping from an excursion boat off the shore of Chicago with rocks in his pockets.
context_section_description: In the fall of 1897, Talcott and his Englewood teammate Clayton Teetzel enrolled at the University of Michigan as students in the Literary Department.  During Talcott's freshman year, he played as a backup quarterback for the 1897 Michigan Wolverines football team.  He also joined the Theta Delta Chi fraternity in 1897.  In its annual publication, The Shield, the fraternity reported that the Michigan chapter was "proud" in having Talcott play "quarter in a number of the games."
  As a sophomore, Talcott was the starting quarterback in six of ten games for the undefeated 1898 Michigan football team that won the school's first Western Conference (as the Big Ten was then known) championship and prompted Louis Elbel to compose Michigan's fight song, "The Victors."  In the early days of football, players were required to play on both offense and defense.  On defense, Talcott was a linebacker.  Blocking was known at the time as "interference," and after a 23–0 victory over Notre Dame in October 1898, The Michigan Alumnus wrote that "Talcott shone in the interference."
  During his junior year, Talcott did not return to the varsity football team, and was instead the captain of the junior class football team.  As a senior in the fall of 1900, Talcott was an assistant coach under Langdon Lea for Michigan's varsity football team, "winning quite a reputation for himself in that line."  Talcott also served as the Chairman of the Senior Literary Social Committee.  He graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1901.
caption: Louis Elbel composed Michigan's fight song "The Victors" as a tribute to the 1898 football team (pictured with original sheet).
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