Paul Veeder
| Yale Bulldogs | |
|---|---|
| Position | Running back |
| Career history | |
| College | Yale (1904–1906) |
| Personal information | |
| Date of birth | c. 1885 |
| Career highlights and awards | |
|
|
Paul L. Veeder (born c. 1885) was an All-American football player for Yale University. Veeder played halfback, fullback, quarterback and punter for the Yale Bulldogs from 1904–1906 and was selected as an All-American in 1906.
A native of Chicago, Illinois, Veeder attended the Latin School of Chicago. He left Chicago to enroll at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was quarterback of the school's 1903 football team.
Veeder enrolled at Yale in the fall of 1903. He played for Yale's football team from 1904 to 1906. Veeder was 5 feet, 10 inches in height and weighed 167 pounds. He played mostly at halfback, but also quarterback and fullback. He also handled punting and place kicking for Yale. A November 1904 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Veeder averaged 50 yards per punt. He was also considered an excellent defensive back, with coaches rating him as "a capital man to bore through an opposing line." Veeder also played baseball as a pitcher at Yale, and in March 1907, the Sporting Life noted: "He is said to possess good curves and speed and good control."
In April 1905, The Washington Post reported that Veeder won the first prize for punting at the annual Yale kicking contest with a total of 175 points. In 1904, the Trenton Times reported that "the fleet quarter and half back" had missed the Princeton game after becoming involved in "a slight scholarship complication," but the matter was closed in time for him to play in the Harvard game.
In the 1906 college football season, the forward pass was introduced to the game of football. The first legal forward pass has been credited to Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University, but some publications say the "first forward pass in a major game" was thrown by Veeder in the Yale-Harvard game on November 24, 1906. Veeder helped Yale defeat Harvard 6-0 in front of a crowd of 32,000 at New Haven. In a game that commentators noted was unlike any game played before, Yale relied heavily on the newly permitted forward pass, and Veeder completed a 30-yard pass to Harvard's 3-yard line for a first down. The completion led to Yale's only touchdown. In 2007, The Washington Post identified Veeder's 30-yard pass as one of the few significant forward passes thrown in the first season of the forward pass.
...
Wikipedia