Buck Flowers

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For the actor, see George Buck Flower.

Buck Flowers
Flowers in 1920
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
PositionHalfback
Class1920
Personal information
Born:(1899-03-26)March 26, 1899
Sumter, South Carolina, U.S.
Died:April 8, 1983(1983-04-08) (aged 84)
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Height5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight155 lb (70 kg)
Career history
College
High schoolSumter
Career highlights and awards
College Football Hall of Fame (1955)

Allen Ralph "Buck" Flowers, Jr. (March 26, 1899 – April 8, 1983) was an American

Georgia School of Technology
in 1918, 1919 and 1920.

A

William Alexander said Flowers was the best punter Tech ever had and the best back he ever coached,[1] calling him "pound for pound, my greatest player". As a safety on defense, no player ever got past Flowers for a touchdown.[2]

In 1955, he became the first Georgia Tech football player to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Flowers was also selected as a halfback on an Associated Press Southeast Area All-Time football team 1869–1919 era.[3]

Early years

Flowers was born in Sumter, South Carolina, in 1899, the son of Allen Ralph Flowers, Sr. and M. Bettie (Cain) Flowers.[4] He attended Sumter High School.[5] As a senior in 1916, Flowers played for a Sumter team that lost only one game. He later recalled, "I only weighed 115 pounds when I was in high school. I did all of the kicking but didn't run very much because I was so small".[6] He is considered the greatest athlete to come out of Sumter, at least before Freddie Solomon.[7]

College football

Davidson College

1917

Flowers enrolled at

yard line, and kicked all three extra points for the Wildcats. He also prevented Auburn from scoring with a tackle at the goal line.[5][6] Flowers also had a 68-yard run against Navy in 1917.[8]

Davidson scored the most on the

backfield of Albert Hill, Everett Strupper, Joe Guyon, and freshman Judy Harlan,[13][14][15] had all but Harlan make the composite All-Southern team. The spot remaining went to Flowers.[16]

Georgia Tech

In 1918, Flowers enrolled at Georgia Tech where he played for the 1918, 1919, and 1920 teams coached by

1918, Flowers had grown to a weight of 150 pounds and was a backup halfback until Heisman discovered Flowers' ability as an open-field runner on punt returns: "Heisman's eyes bulged. And bulged again. On the first punt, Buck ran through the entire first team. Same thing again..and again. Heisman had uncovered one of the greatest broken-field runners."[6] Tech went on to win the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association
(SIAA) in 1918.

1919

Flowers' touchdown vs. Vanderbilt, 1919.

Heisman resigned after the

1919 season. In a 28–0 victory over Clemson, Flowers had a 26-yard touchdown run around left end.[17] Flowers "sidestepped, ducked, twisted and turned until he had again crossed the field almost to the opposite side and then stiff-arming the last man in his way, crossed the goal for a touchdown."[17] A 15-yard pass from Flowers to Bill Fincher netted the third touchdown.[17] Flowers had a 78-yard touchdown against Vanderbilt in the mud.[18]

1920

Flowers was captain of the

Old Dudley Field.[n 1] It was the first game of the year to have direct implications for the Southern championship,[21] and cited by some as the most interesting southern contest of the week.[22] Georgia Tech outplayed Vanderbilt and had the ball for three-fourths of the game. Many Commodores left with injuries.[20] Vanderbilt's ends were easily skirted by the Tech backs Flowers, Red Barron, and Ferst.[20] Captain Flowers made a drop kick from 44 yards out.[23] Ferst came in for Flowers, when Georgia Tech started to use substitutes in the middle of the second quarter. In the loss to Pitt, Flowers drew praise for his spirited tackling of Pitt's larger backs.[2]

The Auburn Tiger came up with claws sharpened. As he writhed in death agony when the battle was over, he made one request, "Please omit Flowers".

— Sportswriter Morgan Blake, [8]

Flowers appeared in his final college football game on November 25, 1920, as Georgia Tech defeated Auburn at Grant Field in Atlanta by a score of 34 to 0.[24] Flowers scored three touchdowns in the game, including punt returns of 82 and 65 yards and a 33-yard run from scrimmage, and also passed for a fourth touchdown.[8][25] Flowers also kicked a punt that went 65 yards in the air against Auburn.[24] Sportswriter Morgan Blake had this to say of Flowers' play against Auburn: "The Auburn Tiger came up with claws sharpened. As he writhed in death agony when the battle was over, he made one request, 'Please omit Flowers'".[8]

The Atlanta Journal wrote that Flowers was "flitting like a phantom, an undulating, rippling, chromatic phantom, over the whitewashed lines".

United Press and the International News Service.[19][26]

Later years

After retiring from football, Flowers had a career in banking and insurance. In 1930, he was living in Atlanta and was the manager of a bank's loan department.[27] In his later years, Flowers lived in Birmingham, Alabama.[28] As of 1958, he was employed as the southeastern region mortgage supervisor for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.[29]

In 1955, he became the first Georgia Tech football player to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.[6] At the induction ceremony at Rutgers University, Flowers was joined by approximately a dozen teammates from the 1920 Georgia Tech team. Flowers gave credit to his teammates and called his induction into the Hall of Fame his "greatest honor".[28]

Flowers died in 1983 at Birmingham, Alabama, at age 84.[8] He was survived by a daughter.[5]

Notes

  1. ^ The worst loss there for Vandy since North Carolina won 48 to 0 in 1900.[20]

Endnotes

  1. ^ a b Lynn Hogan (1973). "They Walked Away Into Legend..." Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. 51 (4): 15–19.
  2. ^ a b Walter Coxe (1953). "The Tornado of '20". Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. 32 (2): 22.
  3. ^ "All-Time Football Team Lists Greats Of Past, Present". Gadsden Times. July 27, 1969.
  4. ^ Ancestry.com. South Carolina Delayed Births, 1766-1900 and City of Charleston, South Carolina Births, 1877-1901 [database on-line]. Allen Ralph Flowers, born March 28, 1899, at Sumter.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Renowned Athlete Buck Flowers Dies". Sumter Daily Item. April 11, 1983. p. 3A.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h "Buck Flowers: He Could Do It All — Well". Daily Item. Sumter, South Carolina. October 15, 1969. p. B2.
  7. ^ Sumter Item, 15 Oct 1969.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h "Buck Flowers Member Biography". College Football Hall of Fame. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
  9. Newspapers.com. Part 1 Part 2 Open access icon
  10. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  11. ISBN 0313284040
    .
  12. ^ Bernie McCarty (February 1988). "Georgia Tech's 1917 backfield, better than the Four Horsemen Part 1" (PDF). College Football Historical Society. 1 (3). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2014.
  13. ^ "Georgia Tech's 1917 backfield, better than the Four Horsemen Part 2" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 11, 2014.
  14. ^ "Everett Strupper, Tech Immortal, Passes Suddenly". Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. 28 (4). 1950.
  15. ISBN 9780762740208
    .
  16. ^ Spalding Football Guide. Shawnee Mission, Kansas, NCAA Publishing Service. 1918.
  17. ^
    Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  18. Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  19. ^ a b Henry L. Farrell (December 10, 1920). "Brilliant Backs Are Features of 1920 Eleven: United Press Scribe Picks An All-American Eleven Himself". Middletown Daily Herald.
  20. ^ a b c Russell, Fred, and Maxwell Edward Benson. Fifty Years of Vanderbilt Football. Nashville, Tennessee, 1938, p. 38
  21. ^ Closed access icon "Southern Football Games Today To Have Bearing On Grid Title For 1920; Tech Plays Vanderbilt". The Macon Daily Telegraph. October 16, 1920.
  22. ^ Closed access icon Jack Veiock (October 15, 1920). "Big Teams To Be Active Saturday". Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
  23. ^ Camp, Walter (1921). Spalding's Official Football Guide. American Sports Publishing Company.
  24. ^ a b "Golden Tornado Sweeps Through Auburn Team 34–0: "Buck" Flowers in Final Game of Career Plays Spectacular Football, Makes Two Eighty-Yard Runs". The Spartanburg Herald. November 26, 1920. p. 14.
  25. ^ "Golden Tornado Wins: Georgia Tech Crushes Alabama Poly by Score of 34 to 0" (PDF). The New York Times. November 26, 1920. p. 19.
  26. ^ Jacob Velock (December 7, 1920). "Hard Task To Pick All-American Team From This Season's Galaxy of Stars". Trenton Evening Times.
  27. ^ 1930 U.S. Census entry for Allen R. Flowers, age 31, born in South Carolina, married to Gladys Flowers. Census Place: Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia; Roll: 364; Page: 17B; Enumeration District: 0117; Image: 165.0; FHL microfilm: 2340099. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line].
  28. ^ a b "Buck Flowers Enters Grid Hall of Fame". Rome News-Tribune. AP. October 16, 1955. p. 10.
  29. ^ "Whatever happened to ..." Sarasota Journal. United Press. May 19, 1958. p. 12.
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