Tom Zerfoss

Tom Zerfoss

Zerfoss in football uniform.
Sport(s) Basketball, Football
Biographical details
Born June 15, 1895
Ashland, Kentucky
Died August 5, 1988 (aged 93)
Nashville, Tennessee
Alma mater Vanderbilt University
Playing career
Basketball:
1913-1914
1915-1920
Football:
1915-1919

Kentucky
Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt
Position(s) Forward/Center
End
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1922-24 Vanderbilt (Assistant)
Administrative career (AD unless noted)
1940-1944 Vanderbilt
Accomplishments and honors

Championships

Football:
1 SIAA (1915)
Basketball:
1 SIAA (1920)

Awards

All-Southern (1919)

Thomas Bowman Zerfoss (June 15, 1895 August 5, 1988) was an American football and basketball player and coach. He played for both the Kentucky Wildcats of the University of Kentucky and the Vanderbilt Commodores of Vanderbilt University. He coached the latter's freshman football team and served as an assistant under head coach Dan McGugin. Zerfoss was selected as an All-Southern football player in 1919 by Charles A. Reinhart, sporting editor for the Louisville Courier-Journal, and J. L. Ray, sporting editor for the Nashville Tennessean.[1] Zerfoss also was captain of the 1919-20 SIAA champion basketball team which went 144.[2]

He graduated from Vanderbilt with an M. D. The Zerfoss Student Health Center at Vanderbilt bears his name. A plaque upon it reads "Named in honor of Thomas Bowman Zerfoss Sr., M.D. ... physician, guide, philosopher and friend to Vanderbilt students for more than 40 years."[3] Zerfoss was Vanderbilt's athletic director from 1940 to 1944. During the nationwide anti-tuberculosis campaign, Vanderbilt issued a mandatory tuberculosis screening of all students in 1948. Students complied by making appointments for chest X-rays with Zerfoss.[4]

It was Zerfoss who got tennis great Joe C. Davis, Jr. to come to Vanderbilt.[5]

References

  1. "All-Southern Elevens". Spalding Football Guide. 1920–1921. pp. 41, 69; 27, 67.
  2. Roy M. Neel. Dynamite! 75 Years of Vanderbilt Basketball. p. 244.
  3. "Tom Zerfoss".
  4. The Vanderbilt Hustler Oct. 15, 1948
  5. Bill Traughber (April 18, 2007). "CHC: Joe Davis Former Tennis Great" (PDF).