Hank Ketcham the Legendary Yale Center

June 17, 1891 - Englewood, New Jersey - Henry Ketcham, the great Yale two-way center/guard from 1911 to the 1913 season, was born.

Hank Ketcham played center and guard for Yale University, and he did so in an era when everything around him, including the football field, was changing. In 1911, he helped the Elis to a 7-2-1 mark. The following couple of years, when rules revisions increased the value of a touchdown to six points, reduced the field from 110 to 100 yards, and added a fourth down to make 10 yards, Yale was making headlines with a 7-1-1 record.

Hank started every game for the Bulldogs from 1911 to 1913. In his final year, Mr. Ketcham was the team's captain, a position that had previously been essentially a combination of being the head coach and a player. Breaking tradition, Ketcham hired Howard Jones as the school's first paid coach, allowing the lineman to focus on his play. 

According to a quote on the NFF’s web bio, Ketcham summed up the changes during his playing career years later when he said, "I played every varsity game for three years and was taken out only once for a slight injury...I am generally credited with having developed the term 'roving center'. Except for today's platoon systems, football hasn't changed materially.

We had the on-side kick, the ball was a bit larger in circumference and the drop kick was more popular than the place kick." Hank Ketcham received the great honor of being selected for inclusion into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1968.