Hobey Baker Hobart Amory Hare Baker ( January 15 , 1892 – December 21 , 1918 ) , known as Hobey Baker , was a noted American amateur athlete of the early 20th century . He was the only member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Hockey Hall of Fame , and U . S . college hockey ' s annual award for most outstanding player is named in his honor . Life . Baker was born in Bala Cynwyd , Pennsylvania , a suburb of Philadelphia . He attended St . Paul ' s School , Concord , New Hampshire , where Malcolm Gordon was coach of the ice hockey team , and he graduated in 1909 . In 1910 , he enrolled in Princeton University . During his time there , he was elected to the Ivy Club , while also playing baseball , football , and hockey . Because Princeton ' s athletic rules limited athletes to participation in only two varsity sports , Baker gave up baseball after his freshman year to concentrate solely on football and hockey . By the time he graduated , he had led Princeton to a national championship in football ( 1911 ) and two national championships in hockey ( 1912 and 1914 ) . Baker was also famous for his refusal to wear headgear in football and for the fact that he was penalized only once during his entire hockey career at Princeton . Following graduation , he worked at J . P . Morgan Bank in New York City and played for the St . Nicholas Club in Manhattan , one of the top amateur clubs in the United States . ( There was no professional hockey in the eastern United States at that time . ) When the country entered World War I in 1917 , he enlisted in the U . S . Army as a pilot and left for Europe . By 1918 , he was a member of the United States Army Air Service , commanding the 103rd Aero Squadron , whose members consisted mainly of veterans of the Lafayette Escadrille . He painted his Spad XIII orange - and - black in honor of his alma mater , Princeton . Contrary to the newspaper accounts of his day , however , Baker was not an ace . He had only three confirmed kills to his name , rather than the necessary five . He was , nonetheless , awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for his service . Just a few weeks after the armistice ending the war , he was killed in a plane crash near Toul while test - flying one of his squadron ' s newly repaired Spads . Ironically , his orders to return home to the United States were found tucked inside his jacket . He is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery , Bala Cynwyd , Pennsylvania . In literature . F . Scott Fitzgerald , who was three years behind Baker at Princeton ( Baker was class of 1914 , Fitzgerald the class of 1917 ) , memorialized him twice in the novel " This Side of Paradise " . The protagonist is named Amory Blaine , a nod to Baker ' s full name . Another character in the novel , Allenby , is based on Fitzgerald ' s impressions of Baker as an undergraduate . Mark Goodman ' s 1985 novel " Hurrah ! For the Next Man Who Dies " is a fictionalized account of Baker ' s time at Princeton and in World War I , as told by one of his friends and classmates . Legacy . Baker is not only considered one of the greatest ice hockey players of his era , but is also regarded as the first great American hockey player . In 1945 he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame , one of only a handful of Americans to be so honored , and was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame as one of its charter members in 1973 . Today , the Hobey Baker Memorial Award is given annually to the top male U . S . college hockey player , and Princeton ' s Hobey Baker Memorial Rink is also named in his honor . At St . Paul ' s , hockey players still compete for an award known simply as " Hobey ' s Stick " . He won the Lester Patrick Trophy posthumously in 1987 . Contributions to ice skating . Hobey Baker improved the design of ice skates by discovering that curling up the toe of the skate would allow him to turn and maneuver more effectively than the flat - bladed skates used at the time . He also invented the wedge stop and in his own time was unique in his use of that method of stopping . Reportedly he only used wedge stopping and never used the parallel ( or " hockey " ) stop which most professional players use even today . Baker was also renowned for being able to skate backwards and use that ability effectively in hockey .