Unearthing the Enigmatic Legacy of Eddie Eagan: A Football and Olympic Journey

You know, I think one of my favorite things is to hear a piece of football history about an individual maybe that I've never heard of before.

I'm sure you share the same thing.

Well, Timothy p. Brown of FootballArchaeology.com joins us today to tell us about an amazing, almost Forrest Gump like figure of early football.

That a story I think you're really going to enjoy.

Stay tuned.

Hello my football friends.

Welcome to the Pig Pen.

This is Darren Hayes@pigskindispatch.com and once again we have our weekly visit with Timothy p. Brown of footballarchaeology.com Tim, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hey Derek, good to see you again.

Looking forward to talking and I believe this story is going to be gold.

Jerry Gold.

Gold, Jerry Gold.

All right.

Well, I'm sure that could be gold, Darren Gold, you know, but I'm just working off the Seinfeld routine.

Okay, I got you now.

I got the Seinfeld reference now.

I got it.

I was trying to fit it into your story, but somehow segueing into our Tim's recent tidbit that he wrote titled Eddie Egan, college football player and summer and a Winter Olympian.

What can you tell us about Eddie Egan, Tim?

Yeah, so, you know, I, I published this one in January, so just prior to the Winter Olympics.

So it's just kind of an oddball story.

Doesn't have a tremendous amount to do with football, but enough, enough.

So there's this guy, Eddie Egan, he grew up in Colorado and I think he must have come from some level of wealth.

But, but he also like maybe on his parents ranch or something, you know, supposedly he used to fight some of the cow hands, you know, that, that was kind of the story whether it's true or not, you know, box.

And so he plays there as a freshman and but then World War I breaks out.

So he joins the military now somewhere in there.

But it's.

So before he joined the military, he had won the Rocky Mountain AAU middleweight championship in boxing.

You know, so obviously he's a pretty tough guy.

You know, I had to be a pretty, pretty decent athlete to be a boxer and you know, playing football and you know, Denver had, you know, pretty good football teams back then.

So, so he ends up joining the army.

And so, you know, then there's stories in the newspaper about him because, you know, he was middleweight champ and then he's going to box in the army and stuff, but he never, he never ships overseas.

You know, that's just kind of the way it worked out with him.

So instead of going back to Denver and because he had been in the military during the war, he was eligible to participate in what they called the Inter Ally Games, which was a, it was actually, it was kind of like a mini Olympics, but it was only for men and it was only men, men who served in the military during World War I.

So it was held, you know, basically in Paris.

But they, you know, they, they had all kind, you name it, you know, all kinds of sports.

So he goes over there and he wins the championship in the Inter Allied Games.

And I mean, best as I can tell, he, he was on the team for a couple of years.

And I know he got into some games because I find his name in like the substitution, you know, list.

So he played, but he wasn't like some big football player.

He comes back to Yale and starts the boxing program.

So before that, you know, they must have had it as kind of like an intramural sort of thing or club, but he gets it going as a varsity sport.

And interestingly, one of the guys who later coaches the boxing team at Yale is Gerald Ford who becomes, you know, U.S. president.

He went to law school at Yale and was an assistant football coach and was the boxing coach while he was there.

So then this Egan guy, he graduates, is a Rhodes scholar.

So he goes to, you know, goes to England, gets a PhD in law, comes back and becomes a successful US lawyer.

So, you know, he's just living the life and you know, living in New York City and kind of everything's just like a normal, influential, rich guy life.

So then the, so this guy says, hey, can you, you know, knowing this guy's pretty strong, but whatever, hey, can you join my team, be a pusher?

So here's a guy you've never, you may not have ever seen a bobsled before, but he ends up on the Olympic team and at Lake Placid, and they win the gold.

Wow.

You know, I just think it's so funny that here's this guy who, you know, was a college football player, you know, real good program, but he was, you know, Olympic gold.

He actually was in the 24 Olympics as a boxer, too, but got knocked out fairly early on, and then.

And then he ends up winning an Olympic gold.

So he's the only guy who has.

Has won gold medals in the winter and Summer Olympics in separate events.

There, there was.

Like, figure skating was a summer sport.

So somebody won figure skating gold in 20, and then 24 and 28 when it was winter.

So they're officially gold medalist for both.

But he's the only one who's done it for two.

Two distinct sports.

So then just one other, you know, weird thing about him is so after World War II, he had done some kind of administrative, you know, work during World War II, something with the air transport.

And so he ends up the guy, Robert Ripley from Believe it or not, he had arranged to fly commercial flights on Pan American Airways and to try to set the world's record for fastest guy circumnavigating the globe on commercial flight.

And then he gets sick right before it happens.

So Egan takes his place.

He sets a world record for circumstances circumnavigating, which today you could do, you know, probably within a day.

Right, right.

But it took 147 hours for him at the time.

Egan's a real Johnny on the spot.

He fills in for Bob Team, fills in for Ripley.

Yeah, I mean, there's not many people who can claim to have, you know, meddled in boxing and, you know, shows he's like, hey, why don't you ask Ken?

Yeah, hey, yeah, I think there's a lot of amazing things about that.

But sit here and think about what, what they're doing over in Europe.

And I know it's not the spectacles it is today, but to have a major world competition in, you know, France a year after the war is done, and then two years after hosting Olympics, I mean, that's got to be a pretty tall task for those folks to have to do.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so, like, back then, I don't think.

I don't think people were even, like, building new facilities for the Olympics at the time.

And there were so much so far Fewer events.

Right.

So it may not have been as big a deal.

And I think for the, I mean, just from a logistics standpoint and infrastructure, but, you know, I think for them it was like, you know, this just shows that we're, you know, we're back to peacetime, you know, we're going strong, you know, whatever.

You still got to have a place for athletes to stay and everything.

And.

And you think about Egan, you know, he's back and forth from where I'm sure they didn't have air travel back when he did it.

So he went across the Atlantic by boat, you know, three times in what, three years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, it's.

Yeah, it's just one of those weird stories.

It's just, I mean, I, you know, I mean, I watch like the bobsledding when it's on.

Right.

But otherwise, I mean, it just, I know they train hard and they, you know, select these athletes, but, you know, they still have the pusher types.

Right?

Yeah, but just the idea of, like, hey, are you available?

And you're on the Olympic team, you.

Know, there have been some famous, like, football players.

Like, didn't Herschel Walker push for bobsled team?

Yeah.

Some other football players I think have done it too.

So.

Interesting.

He must have been the first.

He's a trendsetter.

He was.

And then, then I don't think anybody else did it for quite some time, but.

Right.

Old Eddie did and he actually, they ended up in the 80s.

At the 80s or 90s, they.

They put out a postage stamp, you know, with him.

Oh, amazing.

Well, that is an amazing story, Tim.

And you seem to.

To find these little, you know, you call them your tidbits.

They're these little tricks, trinkets through history that we can't appreciate because nobody remembers a guy did this over 100 years ago.

But you do this quite often in your tidbits.

Maybe you could share with people where they could find more of your information you put out.

Yeah, just.

So my website, it's a substack, footballarchaeology.com just go there, you know, either just bookmark it and come whenever you want or subscribe, which allows you to.

Which means you're going to get an email from me every time the.

There's a new story and then that will.

The email includes the story itself.

So.

And then, you know, I've got my author page on.

On, you know, for my books and all that kind of stuff, which is, you know, just look me up and you can find it all right.

Amazing stuff as always Tim.

We really appreciate you coming on and sharing this tidbit of football history and we'd love to talk to you again next week.

Very good.

Look forward to it.

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