Everett Strupper George Everett " Stroop " Strupper , Jr . ( July 26 , 1896 – February 4 , 1950 ) was an All - American football player . He played halfback for Georgia Tech from 1915 to 1917 . Strupper overcame deafness resulting from a childhood illness and was selected as an All - American in 1917 . During Strupper ' s three years playing for Georgia Tech , the team compiled a record of 24 - 0 - 2 and outscored its opponents by a combined score of 1 , 135 to 61 . In Georgia Tech ' s record - setting 220 - 0 win over Cumberland College in 1916 , Strupper scored eight touchdowns . Strupper was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 . Football career . Strupper was a native of Columbus , Georgia and attended Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville , Georgia before enrolling at Georgia Tech . Strupper played halfback for Georgia Tech football teams under head coach John Heisman from 1915 to 1917 . Strupper was deaf , and because of his deafness , he called the signals instead of the team ’ s quarterback . Strupper was a small man , with his height being stated in varying accounts to be between five - feet seven inches and five - feet , ten inches . His coach John Heisman later wrote that Strupper was " but 5 feet 7 inches in height , weighed only 148 pounds stripped . " He was sometimes known as " little Everett Strupper . " Georgia Tech never lost a game in which Strupper played , compiling three consecutive undefeated seasons from 1915 to 1917 . During Strupper ' s three years playing for Georgia Tech , the team compiled a record of 24 - 0 - 2 . Only two teams managed a tie – the University of Georgia in 1915 and Washington & Lee in 1916 . In those 26 games , Georgia Tech outscored its opponents by a combined score of 1 , 135 to 61 . Georgia Tech coach John Heisman later described Strupper as follows : ” Everett Strupper was a small package of condensed lightning when you turned him loose in an open field with a ball you wanted delivered somewhere in the neighborhood of the enemy ' s goal line . He was small , but he was put together like a high - powered motor . His arms and legs did just what his mind told them to do , and , believe me , his mind worked faster than Ty Cobb ' s when he ' s running the bases . Dodging and twisting , stiff - arming and hipping , he ' d run the gauntlet of men big enough , you ' d think , to pick him up and spank him , and most of the time , too , he ' d get away from them , try as hard as they would . ” Heisman recalled that , when Strupper first arrived from Riverside Military Academy , Heisman could not imagine Strupper playing on the football team : “ Too light for the line , I didn ' t see how he could play in the backfield , because he wouldn ' t be able to get the signals . He could have played quarterback fine , but his enunciation wasn ' t clear enough for him to call the plays . ” Heisman recalled how Strupper overcame the obstacle posed by his deafness : “ He couldn ' t hear anything but a regular shout . But he could read your lips like a flash . No lad that ever stepped on a football field had keener eyes than Everett had . The enemy found this out the minute he began looking for openings through which to run the ball . ” Strupper was selected as an all - Southern player in both 1915 and 1916 . 1915 . In his freshman year , Strupper proved to be an all - around athlete . As Heisman told it , Strupper " was a star baseball player , a crack at basketball and the best sprint man we had in the school . " Heisman recalled that , despite his small stature , Strupper had a powerful body : " Stripped down in the dressing rooms Everett was a sight to behold . There never was a better set up lad than he ; he was a regular Apollo , beautifully muscled and built and coordinating rhythmically in every movement . " When Strupper tried out for the team , he noticed that the quarterback would shout the signals every time Strupper was to carry the ball . Realizing the loud signals would be a tip - off to the opposition , Strupper told Heisman , " Coach , those loud signals are absolutely unnecessary . You see when sickness in my kid days brought on this deafness my folks gave me the best instructors obtainable to teach me lip - reading . " Also , during his freshman year , Strupper became a member of the Georgia Phi chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity . 1916 . In 1916 , Strupper led Georgia Tech to a 220 - 0 victory over Cumberland College in " the most lopsided game in football history . " The score ( compiled on 32 touchdowns and 30 extra points ) broke the old record of a 153 - 0 set by the University of Michigan in 1912 . Strupper scored eight touchdowns in the game , six rushing and two on punt returns . One historic account of the 1916 Cumberland game described Strupper as the " lord high executioner " : " There were many executioners that crisp early - fall Saturday . Halfback G . E . Strupper scored from 20 yards out on Tech ' s first offensive play and went on to be lord high executioner with eight touchdowns and a conversion for a total of 49 points . " In the first quarter alone , Strupper scored four touchdowns on runs of 20 , 10 , 60 , and 45 yards . Strupper chose to allow others to share in the scoring . With a 42 - 0 lead midway through the first quarter , Strupper broke clear and could have scored easily , but he intentionally grounded the ball at the one - yard line to allow Georgia Tech tackle J . Cantey Alexander to score the first touchdown of his career . A teammate later recalled the play as follows : " Strupper swapped positions with Alexander . . . The team didn ' t want to make it too easy for Cantey , though . The other boys wouldn ' t block for him or help in any way . As soon as the ball was snapped , they ran away from the line and out of the . play completely . Leaving poor Cantey to go it alone . Finally , on fourth down , a bruised ' and weary Alexander managed to get the ball across while his teammates howled with laughter . " As the score became increasingly lopsided , Strupper was pulled from the game , and substitute halfback Jim Fellers also scored five touchdowns and an extra point . The game was eventually halted after just 44 minutes of play . 1917 . Strupper also played on the 1917 team that defeated the University of Pennsylvania , then one of the Eastern powers , 41 - 0 . In a 98 - 0 win over the Carlisle Indians in 1917 , Strupper drew praise for his performance . The " Atlanta Journal " wrote : " Everett Strupper played like a veritable demon . At one time four Carlisle men pounced on him from all directions , and yet through some superhuman witchery he broke loose and dashed 10 yards further . On another occasion he attempted a wide end run , found that he was completely blocked , then suddenly whirled and ran the other way , gaining something like 25 yards before he was downed . " Strupper scored five touchdowns against Carlisle , including a 32 - yard fumble return for a touchdown . And in a 68 - 7 win over rival Auburn , Strupper had a 65 - yard touchdown run that drew the following praise from the " Atlanta Journal " : " It was not the length of the run that featured it was the brilliance of it . After getting through the first line , Stroop was tackled squarely by two secondary men , and yet he squirmed and jerked loosed from them , only to face the safety man and another Tiger , coming at him from different angles . Without checking his speed Everett knifed the two men completely , running between them and dashing on to a touchdown . " Post 1917 . After the 1917 season , Strupper was picked on a sports writers ' consensus All - America Team . Strupper was also selected by his teammates to be the captain of the Georgia Tech football team in 1918 , a year that would have been his senior season . However , Strupper entered the military after the 1917 football season and did not return to Georgia Tech for his senior year . After returning from the war , Strupper went into the automobile business and later the insurance business . He went on to become the president of the Piedmont Life insurance Co . Death and legacy . In 1950 , he died from thrombosis at his home in an Atlanta , Georgia hotel . He was age 57 at the time of his death . He was survived by his wife and a daughter , Gwyneth Oliver . Strupper is thought to be the person who came up with the Red Elephant mascot for the University of Alabama in an article he wrote for the Atlanta Journal . Strupper was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 .