William H. "Bill" Bloss (April 4, 1859 – June 22, 1921) was the first American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 coach at Oregon State University

Oregon State University

Oregon State University is a coeducational, public research university located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees and a multitude of research opportunities. There are more than 200 academic degree programs offered through the...

 in 1893 and again in 1897. He also was the quarterback

Quarterback

Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...

 of the 1893 team.

Early life

Bloss was the son of John McKnight Bloss, a Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 veteran and president of State Agricultural College (now Oregon State University) from 1892 to 1896. Bloss attended Indiana University

Indiana Hoosiers football

The Indiana Hoosiers football program represents Indiana University Bloomington in NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football and in the Big Ten Conference.-Bowl games:...

 where he was a star player on the football team. Bloss moved to Corvallis, Oregon

Corvallis, Oregon

Corvallis is a city located in central western Oregon, United States. It is the county seat of Benton County and the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 54,462....

 shortly after his father did in June 1892.

Coaching career

Oregon State's first season of football was in 1893. At that time, Oregon State was known as State Agricultural College, or SAC. William H. Bloss became the schools first coach, as well as the quarterback of the 1893 team.

Bloss scheduled tryouts in the fall of 1893 in an attempt to assemble a football team. By mid-October, he had found 17 players that would make up the first football team in Oregon State's history. The team was a hodge podge of young men in Corvallis. Four players were not even students, including Coach Bloss. One was a high school junior and another was a faculty member.

The first game was played on November 11, 1893 at 2:00pm at College Field on Lower Campus against Albany College

Lewis & Clark College

Lewis & Clark College is a private institution of higher learning located in Portland, Oregon. Made up of an undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a School of Law, and a Graduate School of Education and Counseling. Lewis & Clark is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges with athletic...

. Over 500 spectators who paid a dime

Dime (United States coin)

The dime is a coin 10 cents, one tenth of a United States dollar, labeled formally as "one dime". The denomination was first authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. The dime is the smallest in diameter and is the thinnest of all U.S...

 admission cheered on SAC to 62–0 win, a blowout by today's standards but even worse considering touchdowns were only worth four points at the time. Brady F. Burnett scored Oregon State's first touchdown in school history on a fumble return for a touchdown. In that first season, SAC went on to a 5–1 record.

Bloss left Corvallis after that first season, but returned to coach the 1897 season. He did not quarterback the team. He led SAC to a 5–0 season, including victories over Oregon

Oregon Ducks football

The Oregon Ducks football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the University of Oregon located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The team competes at the NCAA Division I level in the Football Bowl Subdivision and is a member of the Pacific-12 Conference. Known as the Ducks, the...

 and Washington

Washington Huskies football

College football has a long history at the University of Washington. The Washington Huskies have won 15 Pacific-10 Conference championships, seven Rose Bowl titles, and three national championships. Washington's all-time record of 653-398-50 ranks 20th by all-time winning percentage and 21st by...

. With those two wins, the team claimed their first "championship", as they proclaimed themselves the "champions of the northwest".

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