Bob Blake

Robert Blake (January 31, 1885 – May 8, 1962) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player for the Vanderbilt Commodores of Vanderbilt University. Every football season in which he played, Blake was a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) championship team and unanimously selected All-Southern. He was a lawyer and Rhodes Scholar.

His three brothers, Dan, Vaughn, and Frank, also played on those winning teams. Dan, Bob, and Vaughn were captains of the 1906, 1907, and 1908 Vanderbilt football teams respectively. He thus signed letters "Bob Blake, pater familias."

Blake was later general counsel for the International Shoe Company, and married Dorothy Gaynor. Blake was also president of the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1944.

Early life Blake was born on January 31, 1885, in Cuero, Texas, to Daniel Bigelow Blake Sr. and Mary Clara Weldon. Dan Sr. was a physician and once president of the Nashville Academy of Medicine. Bob Blake prepped at Bowen School.

College career Blake was Vanderbilt University’s first athlete to earn 16 letters, participating in football, basketball, baseball, and track. He stood 6 feet and weighed 170 pounds. While a senior, Blake was honored as Bachelor of Ugliness.

Football

Blake was a prominent end for Dan McGugin's Vanderbilt Commodores football teams in 1903 and from 1905 to 1907. He was also a punter and drop kicker. As a punter, one writer claimed others considered him "the best in the country." He was selected All-Southern unanimously each and every year he played, and Vanderbilt won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) championship in all of his years. In 1915, John Heisman called Blake one of the greatest players in Vanderbilt history, along with Ray Morrison and Owsley Manier. and for an Associated Press Southeast Area All-Time football team 1869–1919 era.

1903 Both Blake and teammate John J. Tigert were Rhodes Scholars. Blake broke his wrist in the Sewanee–Vanderbilt game.

1904 and 1905 Bob Blake did not play in Dan McGugin's first year of 1904, but resumed play on the 1905 team. The score was 4 to 0, as field goals then counted for 4 points. College Football Hall of Fame inductee Albert Exendine was playing for Carlisle. Frank Mount Pleasant missed four field goals. Blake missed two kicks on a slippery field in the 8–0 loss to Michigan.

Coaching career Blake assisted his brother, Frank, in coaching at Gordon Institute in 1907.

In 1910, Blake was awarded a law degree and returned to Vanderbilt for one season as an assistant football coach for Dan McGugin.

He coached at Montgomery Bell Academy in 1912.

Later life After practicing law in Nashville from 1911 to 1919, he engaged in business in St. Louis. He was elected to the board of directors of the International Shoe company in 1921, and directed the company since 1929.

Blake was president of the Missouri Constitutional Convention and awarded the "Man of the Year" award for Saint Louis in 1944.