 Hardage at Oklahoma | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 11, 1891 Madison, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | August 29, 1973 (aged 82) Melrose, Florida, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| Football | |
| 1908–1909 | Auburn |
| 1911–1912 | Vanderbilt |
| Position(s) | Halfback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| Football | |
| 1913 | Mercer |
| 1915–1917 | McCallie School (TN) |
| 1921 | Gordon Military College |
| 1922–1931 | Vanderbilt (backfield) |
| 1932–1934 | Oklahoma |
| 1935 | Furman (backfield) |
| 1936–1938 | Florida (backfield) |
| Baseball | |
| 1937–1939 | Florida |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 13–17–5 (college football) 35–24–1 (college baseball) |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Awards | |
| Third-team All-American (1912) 4× All-Southern (1908, 1909, 1911, 1912) 1912 All-time Vandy 2nd team One of coach Dan McGugin's six best players Morgan County Sports Hall of Fame | |
Lewis Woolford Hardage (February 11, 1891 – August 29, 1973) was an American college football player and college football and baseball coach.
Hardage was an All-Southern halfback every year he played: 1908, 1909, 1911, and 1912—the first two for Mike Donahue's Auburn Tigers of Auburn University and the latter two for Dan McGugin's Vanderbilt Commodores of Vanderbilt University. Sportswriter and historian Fuzzy Woodruff dubbed him "one of the most brilliant and famous ever to run across limed lines in the South" and the South's "fastest back of the 1910-1920 decade."[1]
Hardage served as the head football coach at Mercer University in 1913 and the University of Oklahoma from 1932 to 1934, compiling a career college football head coaching record of 13–17–5. He was later the head baseball coach at the University of Florida from 1937 to 1939, tallying a mark of 35–24–1. Hardage also had stints at the head football coach at The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, from 1915 to 1917 and Gordon Military College—now known as Gordon State College—in Barnesville, Georgia, in 1921. He spent ten seasons, from 1922 to 1931, as the backfield coach at his alma mater, Vanderbilt.
- ^ Woodruff 1928b, p. 96