Tom Shevlin

Thomas Leonard Shevlin (March 1, 1883 – December 29, 1915) was an American college football player and coach at Yale University and a businessman. He was a consensus All-American for three of his four years, selected a first-team All-American by some selector in all. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.

Early life and education Shevlin was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Thomas Henry and Alice Ann (Hall) Shevlin. His family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota when he was a young boy, and his father became successful in the lumber business and active in Republican Party politics.

Yale University Shevlin attended Yale University from 1902 to 1906. He became best known as a football player, but also competed in track and field, baseball, boxing, and hockey. By 1905, Shevlin had a national reputation as Yale's premier athlete and "unquestionably one of the most remarkable all round athletes in America." He was six feet tall and weighed "190 pounds when in training and 212 pounds out of training.

Yale Bulldogs track and field While best known for football, Shevlin also received varsity letters at Yale as a hammer thrower for the track and field team. He won the 1903 collegiate hammer throw competition with a throw of 156 feet, 3 inches, and set the world's record in the 12-pound hammer throw. In 1904, he travelled to England, Scotland and Ireland to compete in international track and field competition. In 1905, Shevlin hired world's champion John Flanagan to come to New Haven as his personal trainer, helping Shevlin reach a personal record with a 160-foot throw of the hammer.

Boxing Shevlin also developed an interest in boxing. In 1904, heavyweight boxing champion "Gentlemen Jim" Corbett agreed to a three-round bout with Shevlin at the Yale gymnasium. Corbett won the match, but praised Shevlin afterward: "He hits the hardest blow and is the best man at foot work I ever met with the exception of [James J.] Jeffries."

Automobile racing While at Yale, Shevlin also developed a passion for the new sport of automobile racing. In early 1905, he purchased a $15,000 French automobile and spent considerable time racing it throughout New England. Shevlin drew a further fine when he and a friend drove an automobile "at furious pace" up and down past the dormitories of Smith College as young women "waved responsively to the reckless autoing."

Reputation for spending As exemplified in his purchase of the $15,000 French automobile and hiring the world's champion hammer thrower as a trainer, Shevlin developed a reputation as a free spender. He was known for his "flashy clothes and his loud manner" and for being "a bit wild" in his four years at Yale. The New Haven Register wrote that, even at a school attended by the country's elites, Shevlin had set a record for spending:He is credited with having spent more money than any undergrad ever spent in the course of a year, $17,000 is the figure given. He bought everything—flowers, taxicabs, autos (they were just coming in when Tom was in college), clothes (and such clothes!), jewelry, canes, dinners, and their accompaniments—there wasn't a thing that was untouched by Tom's versatile and seemingly bottomless purse. One newspaper speculated that Shevlin's automobile was the reason for the snub:Can it be true that Tom Shevlin, Jr. ... missed being "tapped" for one of the senior societies merely because he had just become the possessor of a fine, new automobile and was putting on a good deal of style with it? It is true that he was not "tapped;" equally true that he whirled up to the "tapping" place in a splendid automobile, but why should the possession of a 40-horse power horseless wagon militate against a student who desires to be "tapped" and is entitled to the distinction? ... Evidently because he had made himself unpopular and in some way the cause of the unpopularity was the splendid touring car. Other automobiles there are at Yale, but the Minnesota boy had the best machine in the bunch. Envy may have had something to do with the shabby treatment handed out to young Shevlin. There were also suggestions that it was the reckless manner in which Shevlin drove his car that led to his being snubbed. According to another story, Shevlin had placed a $100 bet that he would be tapped by Skull and Bones, and when word of the bet reached the group, they declined to have him. Others suggested that the real reason for Murphy's move to Penn had more to do with the question of salary, even offering personally to pay any sum necessary to keep Murphy at Yale. In the end, Murphy went to Penn, and Shevlin stayed at Yale.

Personal life As the handsome son of a millionaire and one of the most famous athletes in the United States, Shevlin's courting of, and engagement to, Elizabeth Sherley was the subject of extensive press coverage. Sherley was reported to be one of the most beautiful young women in the South and the daughter of one of the wealthiest families of Louisville, Kentucky. Shevlin met the 17-year-old Sherley in 1905, and she attended all of Yale's 1905 football games. The press covered the courtship with articles bearing headlines such as, "Tom Shevlin Is Downed By Cupid." Sherley was described as "one of the prettiest girls who ever sat in a grandstand waving a blue banner and cheering a good play on the gridiron." After beating Harvard in 1905, newspapers reported that Shevlin said to a teammate, "I've realized my first ambition today, beating Harvard. I've got one more—to marry that pretty girl you see sitting there in that box."

The news of the engagement drew national press coverage, and the announcement that Sherley had broken off the engagement a few weeks later drew even wider coverage. After the engagement was announced, Sherley traveled to Baltimore, where she was the subject of considerable attention from the city's men. When news of this attention reached Shevlin, he wrote to her complaining of her activities. Sherley reacted by calling off the engagement noting, "it was not her fault that men wished to pay her attention."

In 1906, Shevlin's courtship of Vera Gilbert, the stepdaughter of New York City architect C. P. H. Gilbert, again put Shevlin's personal life in the public eye. After Shevlin announced his engagement to Gilbert, Gilbert's stepfather spoke publicly in opposition to the union and insisted that there was no engagement. Shevlin insisted that the couple was, in fact, engaged, and the back-and-forth between the two men received extensive press coverage in the last half of 1906. After Shevlin's second engagement in less than a year was called off, one newspaper asked, "Has the little love god deserted Tom Shevlin, Yale's ex-football captain, when not long ago the mere effect of his big, manly self plowing across a player-strewn football field set a hundred feminine hearts a-flutter?" The couple had two children, Betty and Thomas, Jr.

Business career After graduating from Yale, Shevlin returned to Minneapolis where he operated a lumber business.

On several occasions, Shevlin also returned to Yale to help coach the school's football team during periods of difficulty. One writer opined that Shevlin made his reputation when he brought the Minnesota shift to Yale in 1910. Shevlin succeeded in turning the program around in 1910, as he coached the team to a 5-3 win over Princeton and a scoreless tie against Harvard. Shevlin had been called east in October 1915 and was credited with having "made order out of chaos" in just two weeks training the Yale team. As his condition worsened, a telegram was sent to B.W. Sippy, a specialist in Chicago to come to his beside. Sippy was sent to Minneapolis on a special train which sped to Minneapolis in a then-record time of eight hours, but Shevlin died at his home on December 29, 1915, at age 32. After his death, it was written that "Shevlin gave his life to make Yale a winner." He also left more than $1.5 million in life insurance, most of which went to the companies that he ran. Only seven other men in the United States carried as much life insurance as Shevlin. The resulting life insurance payment of $1,525,000 was the largest single-life payment made in 1916 by United States insurers.

After his death, the $1.5 million life insurance purchased by the Shevlin companies was used by life insurance in a major advertising campaign promoting the use of keyman insurance. The following text from a full-page advertisement in The Atlanta Constitution is an example:The value of an officer or worker in any partnership or corporation is most realized at his death. Then insurance in favor of the business should be ready to replace him. Tom Shevlin's firm lost its most valuable asset in Tom Shevlin's death, but insurance of about a million dollars will replace his loss. There's a real moral in this for Atlanta partnerships and corporations—be prepared.