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James Phelan
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For James Phelan, Missouri represented a short, successful first waypoint in a College Football Hall of Fame career.
After playing quarterback at Notre Dame for three seasons, Phelan served as a Tigers assistant in 1919 and assumed head coaching duties in 1920, compiling a 13-3 record in two seasons in Columbia.
Phelan went on to coach at Purdue (including an 8-0 campaign in 1929), Washington and St. Mary’s for a combined 26 years. He then switched to professional football with the Los Angeles Dons and New York Yanks, the latter of which moved to Dallas and became the Texans in 1952. (The Texans, unable to raise financial support from local businesses, folded after one season, clearing the way for the Dallas Cowboys to spawn eight years later.)
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
