Mountain Empire Football Hall of fame
Inducted 2021
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Beattie Feathers
Beattie Feathers is the 1st member from Southwest Virginia to be inducted into the National Football Foundation Mountain Empire Football Hall of Fame. Feathers was an All-State player on the 1927 Virginia High School State Championship football team. Feathers was a star halfback (1931-1933) and consensus 1st Team All-American (1933) and SEC Player of the Year (1933) under coach General Robert Neyland for the University of Tennessee. He scored 32 touchdowns in 30 games for Tennessee, with his team achieving a record of 25-3-2. In December 2008, Sports Illustrated undertook to identify the individuals who would have been awarded the Heisman Trophy in college football's early years, before the trophy was established in 1935 - Feathers was selected as the would-be Heisman winner for the 1933 season. Feathers played in the NFL (1934-1940) for the Chicago Bears (1934-1937), Brooklyn Dodgers (1938-1939), and Green Bay Packers (1940). He had 104 carries for 1,004 yards, setting an NFL record of an average 9.9 yards per carry. In his rookie year with the Bears he became the first player to ever rush for over 1,000 yards in a season. His average of 8.44 yards per attempt that same year remains an NFL record (minimum 100 carries). In 1934, he was the NFL rushing touchdowns leaders. As of 2021, his 91.3 yards per game is also a Bears rookie franchise record. Feathers is 1 of 10 players named to the NFL’s 1930s All-Decade Team. He was named in the top 100 greatest Bears of all time. After his career in the NFL, Feathers coached college football and college baseball. He served as the head football coach at Appalachian State University (1942) and North Carolina State University (1944-1951), compiling a career college football coaching record of 42–40–4. Feather was assistant head football coach at Texas Tech (1954-1960) and Wake Forrest (1961-1977), where he was also the head baseball coach at both schools. In 1926 the Bristol Herald Courier wrote of the star for VHS: “Feathers, fullback, is one of the hardest plunging backs Virginia has ever had, despite his scant poundage. Feathers weighs just above 150 and crashes into the line like a 180 pounder.” Feathers was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1955, and into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1981. |