William Caley

William Caley

Caley cropped from 1898 Michigan Wolverines football team portrait
Date of birth	July 1873 (1873-07)
Place of birth	Missouri, United States
Date of death	January 15, 1918(1918-01-15) (aged 44)
Place of death	Los Cerrillos, New Mexico
Career information
Position(s)	Guard/Halfback/Fullback
Height	6 ft 0.5 in (184 cm)
Weight	195 lb (88 kg)
Career history
As player
1893–1895	Colorado
1896–1898	Michigan
Career highlights and awards
Awards	All-Western, 1898

William Henry "Big Bill" Caley (July 1873 – January 15, 1918) was an American football player, lawyer, and mine operator. He played college football for the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1893 to 1895 and for the University of Michigan from 1896 to 1898. With runs of 75 and 80 yards in 1894 and 1895, he set the all-time Colorado Buffaloes record for longest rushing play – a record that was not broken for nearly 40 years. He was also the second leading scorer on the undefeated 1898 Michigan Wolverines football team that won the university's first Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) football championship. He was selected as a first-team All-Western player by both Caspar Whitney and the Chicago Daily Tribune. After graduating from Michigan, he returned to Colorado where he practiced law and operated grocery and mining businesses.

Caley was born in 1873 in Missouri. His parents, Franklin T. and Grace (Ormiston) Caley, moved to Colorado when Caley was an infant. His father operated a hotel and engaged in the mining, cattle, and butcher businesses at Alma, Colorado. In the 1890s, the family moved to a 1,600-acre ranch near Littleton, Colorado, eventually operating a cheese factory that became one of the leading businesses in the Littleton area.

Caley studied as an undergraduate at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While attending Colorado, he played at the halfback position on the football team from 1893 to 1895. He was the captain of the 1895 Colorado Buffaloes football team. As team captain, he led a group that recruited Fred Folsom to the University of Colorado as its football coach in 1895. His 80-yard run in a 28-0 victory over Denver on November 5, 1895, was a Colorado Buffaloes rushing record for nearly 40 years; it remains one of the longest runs in the program's history. He had previously set the record with a 75-yard run in a 67-0 victory over Colorado State on October 27, 1894. He was selected as the best all-round athlete at the University of Colorado's field day in 1895. In 1904, a writer in the Denver Times wrote that Caley was "probably the best football player ever turned out of the University of Colorado."