Marvin O. Bridges

Marvin Orestus Bridges (April 1, 1878 – January 13, 1962)[2] was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and football coach. He served in the Spanish-American War, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Marvin O. Bridges
Bridges c. 1903
Biographical details
Born(1878-04-01)April 1, 1878
Bedford County, Tennessee, US
DiedJanuary 13, 1962(1962-01-13) (aged 83)
Nashville, Tennessee, US
Playing career
1902–1903Cumberland
1905Allegheny
1905Washington & Jefferson
Position(s)Guard, fullback
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1904University of Florida at Lake City
Head coaching record
Overall0–5[1]
Accomplishments and honors
Awards
All-Southern (1903)

Cumberland

Marvin Bridges was prominent guard for the Cumberland Bulldogs of Cumberland University. His brother M. L. Bridges also played on the team. Both he and his brother were listed as from "Cornersville,"[3][4] and stood some 6 foot 4 inches, weighing some 225 pounds.[5] Marvin was also known as a fine punter,[6] and kicked the extra points.

1903

Marvin Bridges was selected All-Southern from his guard position in 1903. That year Bridges and Red Smith helped lead Cumberland to a defeat of Vanderbilt and a tie of coach John Heisman's Clemson Tigers football team to finish the season in the game billed at the "SIAA championship game" in Montgomery, Alabama on Thanksgiving Day.[7] It was Heisman's last game as Clemson's coach. At Cumberland, Bridges was a member of the Rho chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. The fraternity's football prestige was said to rest on Red Smith and the two Bridges brothers, noting Marvin was "as handsome as the gods."[8]

University of Florida

He later coached for the football team at the University of Florida at Lake City in 1904, one of the four predecessor institutions to the modern University of Florida and the contemporary Florida Gators football team, which started in 1906.[9] Bridges' "White and Blue" teams compiled an 0–5 record and were outscored 224 to 0 by the likes of Mike Donahue's first year at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Georgia, and John Heisman's first year at Georgia Tech. He founded UF's Alpha Eta chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha at Lake City on November 17, 1904.[10][11]

That same year, coach Branch Rickey was happy to get Bridges to Allegheny College, but Bridges bolted for pay to Washington & Jefferson.[12] Bridges played a handful of years in the minor leagues as a pitcher.[13]

References
  1. "1904 Florida Gators Schedule and Results".
  2. "Tennessee Deaths, 1914-1966," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2HD-LS97 : 1 March 2021), Marvin Orestes Bridges, 13 Jan 1962; Death, Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, United States, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville.
  3. The Phoenix. Cumberland University. 1904. p. 36.
  4. Dahlinger, Charles William (1987). "The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine".
  5. James Whalen (1991). Gridiron Days Now Gone: The Heyday of 19 Former Consensus Top-20 College Football Programs. p. 356. ISBN 9780899506470.
  6. "on colleges and college sports". The Cumberland Alumnus. 6 (5): 7. 1927.
  7. Wiley Lee Umphlett (1992). Creating the Big Game: John W. Heisman and the Invention of American Football. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 67. ISBN 9780313284045.
  8. Verner M. Jones (1904). "The Editor's Desk". The Kappa Alpha Journal. 21 (5): 639.
  9. Jay Langhammer. "Pi Kappa Alpha's Great College Football Coaches".
  10. "Pledging Athletes". Shield & Diamond: 17. Spring 2011.
  11. "Alpha Eta Chapter". Register of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity: 470. 1916.
  12. Lee Lowenfish (2009). Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803224537.
  13. "Marvin Bridges".


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