Stan Pennock Stanley Bagg " Bags " Pennock ( June 15 , 1892 – November 27 , 1916 ) was an American football player . He was selected as a first - team All - American at the guard position three consecutive years while leading Harvard University to three undefeated seasons from 1912 to 1914 . He was killed in 1916 in an explosion at a chemical plant in New Jersey . He was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 . Early life . A native of Syracuse , New York , Pennock was the son of John D . Pennock , the general manager of the Solvay Process Company . He attended the Hackley School at Tarrytown , New York , before enrolling at Harvard University . Harvard University . Pennock entered Harvard in 1911 and played on the school ' s freshman football and track teams . He gained fame as a member of Percy Haughton ' s undefeated football teams of 1912 , 1913 , and 1914 . Pennock helped to provide Harvard with one of the most aggressive defenses in Eastern football . During Hardwick ' s three years as a starter for Harvard , Pennock developed a reputation as " one of the best linemen that ever played under the old or the new rules . " Harvard ' s football team did not lose a single game while Pennock played in its line , compiling records of 9 – 0 in 1912 , 9 – 0 in 1913 , and 7 – 0 – 2 in 1914 . Harvard was the national football champion in each of Pennock ' s three seasons , out - scoring the competition , 588 - 61 . In helping Harvard win three straight national championships , Pennock was also selected as a first - team All - American in all three years by Walter Camp . As a senior in 1914 , Pennock was selected as a first - team All - American by 25 of 26 selectors , including " Collier ' s Weekly " ( selected by Walter Camp ) , " Vanity Fair " ( selected based on the votes of 175 newspapermen ) , Walter Eckersall of the " Chicago Tribune " , and the " New York Herald " . While attending Harvard , Pennock was also a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , the Institute of 1779 , and the Hasty Pudding Club . Career in chemistry . After graduating from Harvard , Pennock became a chemist . In the fall of 1915 , he attended post - graduate courses at Harvard ' s chemical laboratories . He entered into a business partnership with two other Harvard graduates , James Bryant Conant and Chauncey Loomis , and formed the LPC Laboratories . Pennock and his partners opened a plant in a one - story building in the Queens section of New York , at which they manufactured chemicals that were selling at high prices due to interruption of imports from Germany during World War I . The New York plant was destroyed by a fire , and the partners immediately opened a new plant in an abandoned slaughterhouse in Newark , New Jersey . Death and tributes . Two weeks after the Newark plant opened , Pennock was killed in an explosion which wrecked the facility . Two other workers were killed in the explosion , which was believed to have been caused by gasoline stored at the plant . At his funeral , six of his Harvard teammates , including his former roommate Charles Brickley , carried his body to the grave at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse . His fellow lineman Walter Trumbull spoke at the funeral and reflected on Pennock ' s life : " Stan was a true man . He lacked nothing in virtues and he was everything a man should be . When in college we looked to ' Stan ' as one to whom we might tell our troubles . We confided everything to him and he was ever able to make us see life in a different light . And Stan was possessed of great abilities . The most striking feature of it all was , that he was unconscious of what he really was . His Christian qualities will always remain in our minds and we will think of him forever as the great friend he was . " Following Pennock ' s death , the " Boston Globe " published a tribute which included the following observations : " ' Stan ' Pennock always will be remembered not only as one of Harvard ' s greatest guards , but as one of the highest types of young manhood that ever has been connected with Harvard football . His name will be remembered with those of the late Marshall Newell and Francis Burr . . . . Although active in athletics at Harvard and in college days , Stanley Pennock was always a high stand man of his classes . " In 1917 , Pennock ' s father presented Harvard with a gift to establish the Stanley Bagg Pennock Scholarship to be awarded to an indigent senior student specializing in chemistry and intending to pursue a career as a chemist . Pennock was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as part of its second induction class in 1954 .