Dick King ( American football ) Richard Stewart Cutter " Dick " King ( February 9 , 1895 - October 16 , 1930 ) was an All - American and professional football player . He played college football for Harvard University and was selected as an All - American at halfback ) in 1915 . In 1916 , he signed with the Pine Village professional football team , becoming one of the first eastern football stars to play professional football . He also played professional football for the Hammond Pros , Milwaukee Badgers , Rochester Jeffersons and St . Louis All - Stars in 1923 . Athlete and All - American at Harvard . A native of Boston , Massachusetts , King attended the Boston Latin School before enrolling at Harvard University . He was 5 feet , 8 inches in height and weighed 175 pounds . At the time of his selection as an All - American in 1915 , King was not the typical Harvard athlete . He was married and had two children ( a two - year - old daughter and a six - month - old son ) , and was working his way through college . He first tried out for the freshman football team in 1912 . At that time , he knew little or nothing about the game and " did not even threaten to ' make ' the team . " He failed to make the varsity team as sophomore and was also rejected by the baseball team and crew . In 1914 , King made the cut for Harvard ' s varsity football team , but saw limited playing time as a substitute . King did not start a game for Harvard until his senior year , and was selected as an All - American in his first full year playing the game . He played halfback for the 1915 Harvard team that boasted one of the best backfields in the early years of college football with King , Eddie Mahan and Hardwick . With Harvard ' s opponents focused on stopping three - time All - American Mahan , King was able to score the only touchdown on a 30 - yard run in Harvard ' s 1915 victory over Princeton . After King ' s " long leap in the lair of the Princeton Tigers , " one writer noted King ' s progression from scrub to star : " Stubborn Dick King , once the lowliest of scrubs , now stands full flush at the entrance to the Harvard gallery of big football heroes . " At the end of the 1915 season , Walter Camp and Fielding H . Yost both named King to their first - team All - American squads , and Chicago football expert Walter Eckersall selected him as a second - team All - American . Football coach at Wisconsin . After graduating from Harvard in 1916 , King accepted a position as the backfield coach for the University of Wisconsin . He served in that capacity for only one year . The " Wisconsin State Journal " called him one of the school ' s most important coaches , noting that he had instilled his " fighting spirit " in the Wisconsin backfield . In October 1916 , King announced that he had been offered a position as an engineer with a South American mining operation . He planned to leave for South America at the conclusion of the football season . Pioneer of professional football . In November 1916 , while still serving as a coach at Wisconsin , King signed with " the famous Pine Village team " - - one of the first professional football teams . King was hired as both a player and coach , and was the highest paid player on the team . In signing with Pine Village , King became " one of the first of the eastern greats to step into the pro ranks . " Prior to 1917 , professional football had attracted only a narrow following , principally in Ohio and Indiana . Professional football was viewed as unworthy of graduates of major universities , and college stars who played in the early days of professional football frequently used assumed names to hide their identities . In 1916 , the Pine Village team consisted of King and a group of former players from Indiana University . By signing King , Pine Village hoped to bring the sophistication of Eastern football to Indiana . In December 1916 , Pine Village played a highly anticipated game against the Hammond Pros for the championship of Indiana . In the build - up to the game , one Indiana newspaper focused on Pine Village ' s acquisition of King : " The Pine Village aggregation is one of the strongest in the entire country and is composed almost entirely of ex - college players who have won berths on All - American , All - Western and All - Conference elevens . Among the stars with Pine Village are Dick King , of Harvard , All - American halfback in 1915 , and the greatest fullback playing today . He is the highest salaried player on the Pine Village team and his stipend per game runs well into three figures . King is a wonderful line plunger and on nearly all of his runs carries from three to five men along with him for several yards . " King continued to play for Pine Village from 1917 – 1919 , and was known both for his coaching and his " line - plunging " skills . In 1919 , a Fort Wayne newspaper noted : " King acts as coach for the Pine Village outfit and local fandom can expect to see some wonderful interference displayed by the Pine Village team . King is a firm believer in interference , profiting by his experience at Harvard , where this branch of the game went a long way in making Harvard teams invincible in the four years preceding the war . " The publicity for the fledgling Indiana professional circuit may have peaked in 1919 when Hammond signed another major eastern star , quarterback Eddy from Princeton . King was the star of the Indiana league , and when the teams featuring King and Eddy met in November 1919 , one Indiana newspaper noted , " King hits the line like a streak and is seldom stopped before he reaches the secondary defense . " In another article , an Indiana paper wrote , " King needs no introduction to local fans , as he is a former All - American back with a country wide reputation and perhaps the greatest line plunger in the game today . " King also played for the Hammond Pros from 1919 – 1921 , the Milwaukee Badgers the Rochester Jeffersons in 1922 , and the St . Louis All - Stars in 1923 . The 1919 Hammond Pros featuring King ( and a rookie named George Halas ) had a payroll of $ 20 , 000 for eleven players , said to be one of the highest team payroll in the history of professional football to that time . Also in 1919 , an Indiana newspaper called King " one of the greatest backs who ever wore moleskin s " and noted : " As a line plunger , King ranks with the best in the game , while his ability to place kick from anywhere within the 50 - yard mark makes a score possible for his team whenever the ball is advanced into enemy territory . " Family . King ' s first marriage , to Hazel Hatch , ended in divorce in May 1918 . On March 1 , 1919 at Crown Point Indiana King married Vera I Ketrick of Chicago . The marriage of the famous football player to Ketrick drew press attention focusing on the fact that King ' s new bride was a two - time divorcee . One Indiana newspaper reported : " Famous Football Player , Once Divorced , Takes a Twice Divorced Wife . "