George Barclay
Sport: Football (Inducted: 1984-85)

George Barclay stood only 5'9 and weighed just 158 pounds, but his athletic prowess on the football field led Lafayette to claim a share of the mythical national title, along with Princeton, in 1896.

That season the Leopards scored 242 points and allowed just 10 in finishing with an 11-0-1 mark. Reports show that this speedy halfback scored a spectacular total of 43 touchdowns and kicked more than 11 field goals in the three seasons on College Hill. Francis A. March, Jr., in his "Athletics at Lafayette," published in 1926, wrote that Barclay was "nationally famous" and selected him to his all-Lafayette team before 1905. In four games against rival Lehigh, Barclay ran for eight touchdowns. In a 28-0 win in 1894, he scored 24 points, including two 80-yard runs for scores. He is said to have "invented" the football helmet when the "threat of cultivating cauliflower ears" led him to piece three thick leather straps around his head for the 1896 game against Penn.

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