Huntington Hardwick Huntington Reed " Tack " Hardwick ( October 15 , 1892 – June 26 , 1949 ) was an American football player . He played at the halfback and end positions for Harvard University and was selected as a unanimous first - team All - American in 1914 . He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954 . Biography . Early years . A native of Quincy , Massachusetts , Hardwick was the son of Charles Theodore Hardwick . Harvard University . He enrolled at Harvard University in 1911 at age 18 . While attending Harvard , Hardwick was a varsity athlete in three sports . He was captain of Harvard ' s baseball team , a shot put ter , and the " strong man " of Harvard for two consecutive years . He gained his greatest fame , however , playing for Percy Haughton ' s Harvard football teams from 1912 to 1914 . During Hardwick ' s three years as a starter for Harvard , the football team did not lose a single game compiling records of 9 – 0 in 1912 , 9 – 0 in 1913 , and 7 – 0 – 2 in 1914 . As a sophomore in 1912 , Hardwick had a 60 - yard touchdown run against Amherst College , scored a touchdown in Harvard ' s first victory over Princeton in 25 years , and caused a fumble that led to a game - winning touchdown against Yale . Hardwick was known as a fierce blocker . In naming Hardwick to Harvard ' s all - time team , one reporter later wrote : " Hardwick , known to his intimates as ' Tack , ' was perhaps the hardest blocker American football has ever known . A vicious , tireless interferer , Hardwick was never happy as long as a single enemy remained standing . " Columnist Grantland Rice called Hardwick " dynamite on the football field " and selected him years later as one of the five greatest competitors he had ever seen , along with Ty Cobb , Walter Hagen and Jack Dempsey . As a junior in 1913 , Hardwick was moved to the end position to allow Eddie Mahan to play at halfback . Despite having to learn a new position , Hardwick was selected by Walter Camp as a second - team All - American end in 1913 . As a senior in 1914 , Hardwick split his playing time between the end and halfback positions . At the end of the 1914 season , Hardwick was the only player who was unanimously selected as a first - team All - American by all 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 Frank G . Menke , the sporting editor of the International News Service . World War I and business career . During World War I , Hardwick served in the U . S . Army as a captain in the artillery . While stationed in France , he commanded a trench mortar unit . Hardwick went on to have a successful career in business in Boston . In 1926 , Hardwick and a group of Boston investors was awarded a professional ice hockey franchise for Chicago from the National Hockey League ( NHL ) , but sold the franchise ( which became the Chicago Blackhawks ) a month later . In 1929 , he helped found the Boston Garden . He was also employed by the Boston advertising firm of Doremus & Co . and served as a director of the Columbian Steamship Company , the Santander Navigation Company , and the Boston Garden - Arena Corporation . Family . In December 1913 , Hardwick was engaged to Margaret Stone , the daughter of financier Galen Stone of the brokerage firm of Hayden Stone & Co . Stone was a debutante in 1913 and an " enthusiastic follower " of Harvard football . The couple married in 1915 , and their wedding , attended by 1 , 000 guests , was described as " a brilliant social event , " and " the most sumptuous bridal that ever graced the Buzzard ' s Bay shore . " After a wedding breakfast , the couple left in an automobile for a honeymoon trip . The couple had one child , Margaret , born in 1917 . In 1933 , Hardwick ' s wife , Margaret Stone Hardwick , filed for divorce in Reno , Nevada , citing incompatibility as the ground for divorce . Hardwick told the press at the time that the breakup of the marriage was entirely his fault and that he regretted the action . In May 1947 , his wife died and left an estate valued at $ 2 . 8 million to Hardwick and their daughter , Margaret Hardwick Simmons . In September 1948 , Hardwick married Manuela De Zanone - Poma , formerly of Barcelona , Spain , and Cannes , France . Death and tributes . In June 1949 , Hardwick died of a heart attack while clamming at Church ' s Beach on Cuttyhunk Island off the coast of Massachusetts . A friend reported that Hardwick suddenly toppled into the water as they walked along the shore . Shortly after Hardwick ' s death , sports columnist Grantland Rice wrote a column about Hardwick in which he observed : " Tack Hardwick has been a close friend of mine for 35 years . Of all the college football players I ' ve ever known since 1900 , I would say he was top man in the matter of flaming spirit . He loved football with an intensity beyond belief . Tack was a great halfback and a great end . But above all , as a real tribute , he was a greater blocker and a greater tackler . He told me once that he would rather block or tackle than carry the ball to a touchdown . . . . If football had a weakness for Hardwick it was that the game was not quite rough enough . " Rice described Hardwick as " a big , fine - looking aristocrat from blue - blood stock , " who " loved combat - - body contact at crushing force - - a fight to the finish . " Rice closed his column by noting , " College football will bring us many stars . But college football will never bring us another Tack Hardwick - - the spirit of football . " Hardwick was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as part of its second induction class in 1954 .