Gustave Ferbert
 |
|
| Sport(s) | Football |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born |
July 22, 1873 Cleveland, Ohio |
| Died | January 15, 1943 (aged 69) Cleveland, Ohio |
| Playing career | |
| 1893–1896 | Michigan |
| Position(s) | Halfback, end |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1897–1899 | Michigan |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 24–3–1 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 1 Western Conference (1898) | |
Gustave Herman Ferbert (July 22, 1873 – January 15, 1943), nicknamed "Dutch," was first a player (1893–1896) and then the head coach (1897–1899) for the University of Michigan American football team. In 1898, his Michigan team went 10–0 and won the first Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) championship in the school's history. He left the University of Michigan in 1900 and spent nine years prospecting for gold in Alaska, finally striking it rich off claims he discovered in 1908 and 1909.
Ferbert was born in 1873 to John C. Ferbert and Caroline Stlbbinger at Cleveland, Ohio.
Ferbert played quarterback and right halfback for the University of Michigan from 1893 to 1896. During the four years Ferbert played, the Michigan team compiled an overall record of 33–4–1. In his senior year, 1896, the team went 9–1, winning its first nine games by a combined score of 256 to 4. In a 20–0 victory over Minnesota, Ferbert scored two touchdowns. However, the team lost the final game of the season to the University of Chicago, 7–6, in a game played indoors at the Chicago Coliseum. The newspapers reported that Pingree was the "whole thing" for Michigan in the first half, though Ferbert took his place in the second half and was "equally effective." The game was played in front of 15,000 enthusiasts in the same building in which William Jennings Bryan had been nominated for the presidency just five months earlier, and the game was "one of the most desperately contested games ever played Chicago." Neither team resorted to trick plays, "both relying on straight, hard football." Toward the end of the second half, it got very dark, and "the spectators were treated to a novelty in the shape of a football by electric light."
In December 1896, Febert was unanimously selected as the captain of Michigan's 1897 football team. One newspaper reported on the selection as follows:
"'Dutchy,' as Ferbert is almost universally called by his college fellows, has been as popular as any man who ever played on one of Michigan's teams, and his election meets the favor of every one. Ferbert began his career as a football player in the Ann Arbor high school team ... He began playing on the varsity in '93 at end, but in the Purdue game of that year, on account of an injury to one of the regular backs, Ferbert was put in back of the line, and no one has been able to run him out of his position. During a majority of the time he has played on the team he has acted as field captain, and his splendid judgment has been largely instrumental in Michigan's success on the gridiron."
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