Hobey Baker

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Hobey Baker
Date of birth	January 15, 1892
Place of birth	Bala Cynwyd, PA
Date of death	December 21, 1918 (age 26)
Place of death	Tours, France
Position(s)	Quarterback
College	Princeton University
College Hall of Fame

Hobart Amory Hare Baker (January 15, 1892 - December 21, 1918), known as Hobey Baker, was a noted sportsman and fighter pilot of the early 20th century.

Baker was born in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. He attended St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire where Malcom Gordon was coach of the ice hockey team, graduating in 1909. In 1910 he enrolled in Princeton University as a member of the class of 1914. During his time there, he was elected to the Ivy Club, while playing baseball, football and hockey. Because Princeton's athletic rules limited athletes to participation in only two varsity sports, Baker gave up baseball after his freshman year, concentrating solely on football and hockey. Yet, by the time he graduated, he had led Princeton to a national championship in football (1911) and two national championships in hockey (1912 and 1914). Famously, Baker refused to wear headgear in football and was penalized only once during his hockey career at Princeton. Following graduation, he worked at J. P. Morgan Bank in New York City. Due to the fact there was no professional American hockey at the time, he played as an amateur with the St. Nicholas Club in Manhattan, one of the top clubs in the country. He enlisted in the U.S. Army as a pilot upon the country's entry into World War I and left for Europe in 1917. By 1918, he was a member of the Lafayette Escadrille, commanding the 103rd Aero Squadron. Contrary to the newspaper accounts of his day, however, Baker was not an ace, having only three confirmed kills to his name, although he was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French government for his service. He also painted his Spad XIII orange and black in honor of his alma mater. Just weeks after the armistice ending the war, he was killed in a plane crash while piloting one of his squadron's newly repaired Spad's near Toul. Ironically, his orders to return home to the United States were found tucked inside his jacket.

Baker was immortalized in literature by F. Scott Fitzgerald, himself a member of Princeton's class of 1917. Fitzgerald named the protagonist in his novel "This Side of Paradise" Amory Blaine in reference to Baker's full name. Another character in the novel, the Princeton football captain Allenby, is based on Fitzgerald's impressions of Baker as an undergraduate. Mark Goodman's 1985 novel, "Hurrah! For the Next Man Who Dies" is a fictionalized account of Baker's time at Princeton and in World War I, as told by one of his friends and classmates.

Today, the Hobey Baker Memorial Award is given annually to the top American college hockey player, and Princeton's Hobey Baker Memorial Rink is also named in his honor. At St. Paul's, hockey players still compete for an award known simply as, "Hobey's Stick." Baker is not only widely considered one of the greatest ice hockey players of his era, but also the first great American hockey player. In 1945 he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, one of only a handful of Americans to be so honored, and was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame as one of its charter members in 1973. In 1975, he was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.