1. Lawrence Morgan Kelley was an American football end who played for the Yale Bulldogs football program from 1934 to 1936.
35 Facts About Larry Kelley
1. 2.
Larry Kelley was selected as a unanimous first-team All-American and won the Heisman Trophy as the best player in college football.
3.
Larry Kelley rejected offers to play professional football, baseball, and basketball and instead became a high school teacher and coach.
4.
Larry Kelley was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969.
5.
Larry Kelley died by suicide six months later at the age of 85.
6.
Larry Kelley moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at age 8 and attended Williamsport High School.
7.
Larry Kelley graduated from Peddie ranked first in his class.
8.
Larry Kelley enrolled at Yale College in the fall of 1933.
9.
Larry Kelley received a scholarship to cover the $900 annual cost of attending the college.
10.
Larry Kelley played for Yale's baseball, basketball, and football teams.
11.
Larry Kelley was unanimously elected by his 25 fellow lettermen as captain of the 1936 Yale Bulldogs football team.
12.
Larry Kelley played all 60 minutes in six of the team's eight games.
13.
Larry Kelley missed only 15 minutes out of 480 for the season.
14.
The most famous play of Larry Kelley's career occurred on October 17,1936, against Navy.
15.
Larry Kelley kicked the loose ball between 20 and 40 yards, chased after ball, and recovered it inside Navy's five-yard line.
16.
Larry Kelley tallied 17 receptions for 372 yards and six touchdowns in 1936.
17.
Larry Kelley's brain is a fire engine, and it drives the splendid chassis of his body smoothly.
18.
Larry Kelley is always there with the sudden dash, the change of pace, the full steam ahead, when it is needed.
19.
Larry Kelley is the only player in Yale football history to score a touchdown in every game he played against rivals Harvard and Princeton.
20.
In three years at Yale, Larry Kelley totaled 49 passes for 889 yards and 13 touchdowns.
21.
On December 2,1936, the Downtown Athletic Club announced that Larry Kelley had won the Heisman Trophy as the year's best college football player Against competition that included Hall of Famers Sammy Baugh and Ace Parker, Larry Kelley won the award in a landslide, receiving 213 points, more than quadruple the point total received by any other player.
22.
Larry Kelley was the first recipient of the award after it was named the "Heisman Trophy".
23.
Larry Kelley later donated a replica of his Heisman Trophy to the Peddie School.
24.
In December 1999, several months before his death, Larry Kelley sold his Heisman Trophy at an auction.
25.
In December 1936, Larry Kelley was selected by the Detroit Lions in the 1937 NFL draft.
26.
Larry Kelley rejected an offer of $5,000 to play professional baseball for the St Louis Cardinals of the Major League Baseball.
27.
Larry Kelley turned down a $15,000 offer to star in an autobiographical film titled, "Kelley of Yale".
28.
Larry Kelley tried to enlist during World War II but was ruled ineligible because both eardrums had been ruptured by playing football.
29.
Larry Kelley was given a 2B designation and worked in war industries for the duration of the war.
30.
Larry Kelley returned to Peddie in 1970 as alumni director.
31.
Larry Kelley married Katharine Duncan in September 1939, but the marriage lasted only three years.
32.
Larry Kelley was married for a second time in March 1946 with Anne Goodwin.
33.
Larry Kelley had a daughter, Katharine Lynne Libby, with his first wife.
34.
Larry Kelley was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969.
35.
On June 27,2000, six months after selling his Heisman Trophy, Larry Kelley shot himself in the head with a handgun in the basement of his house in Hightstown.