page_title: Lynn Bomar
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Lynn Bomar / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: 1920 Tennessee state prep-school basketball champions, Fitzgerald-Clarke Military Academy of Tullahoma. Wade is in back. front, from left: McDowell, Gracy and Felts; back: Smith, Bomar and Phillips.
context_page_description: Robert Lynn Bomar was an American football end in the National Football League. Bomar played college football, basketball and baseball for Vanderbilt University, following coach Wallace Wade and classmate Hek Wakefield there from prep school, and was a unanimous 1922 All-Southern selection and a consensus 1923 All-American selection in football. The latter season included a first-team All-American selection by Walter Camp, rare for a player in the South. A paralyzing injury ended Bomar's college career, but he quickly recovered and sat on the bench for all of his team's games. He played for the New York Giants in 1925 and 1926, retiring abruptly after a separate injury. Bomar was nicknamed "the Blonde Bear".
  He had a later career in law enforcement. In his position as Tennessee's Commissioner of Public Safety and Patrol chief, Bomar supervised the ransacking of black households during the 1946 Columbia race riot. He was the warden of Tennessee State Prison from 1955 until his death, and oversaw several executions. In 1956, Bomar was the first Vanderbilt football player elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.
context_section_description: Bomar was born on January 21, 1901, in Bell Buckle, Tennessee to Oliver Eugene Bomar, a blacksmith, and Elizabeth May McAdams. Vanderbilt records indicate that he spent part of his youth in Gallatin. Bomar attended Webb School in his native Bell Buckle, and spent a year at Castle Heights Military Academy.
caption: 1920 Tennessee prep-school basketball champions; Wallace Wade is in the back, and Bomar is in the middle of the back row.
exif: {}