James Nollner "Stein" Stone Sr.
Vanderbilt University
At Vanderbilt he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.
Football
He was a four time All-Southern center for
Dan McGugin's Vanderbilt football teams, selected for the position on all-time Vanderbilt teams in 1912 and 1934.
He was also selected for an
Associated Press Southeast Area All-Time football team 1869–1919 era.
On another all-time team of Southerners, one finds "For center we shove in Stein Stone of Vanderbilt, who is about as good as man as the South ever saw. Vanderbilt will have about eight of these eleven men."
[ ] In 1915,
John Heisman selected his 30 best Southern football players, and Stone was mentioned 17th.
He was some 6 foot 3 and 180 pounds.
1907
In the 1907 game against Michigan, "In the duel of centers, Stone of Vanderbilt, had the best of
Germany Schulz. Michigan's massive center. Stone's play was spectacular all the way."
[ ] His catch on a double-pass play then thrown near the
end zone by Bob Blake
to set up the touchdown run in by
Honus Craig that beat Sewanee, for the SIAA championship in 1907, was cited by
Grantland Rice as the greatest thrill he ever witnessed in his years of watching sports.
Rice selected Michigan's Germany Schulz as football's greatest ever center. "Stone of Vanderbilt wasn't far away," he remarked.
[The First Fifty Years
]
All-America history, and the All-Time team
by Grantland Rice
Collier's Weekly, December 9, 1939, pp. 18-19
Basketball
On top of this, Stein was supposedly "the finest basketball player in Dixie."
Coaching career
He served as the
head coach of the Clemson
college football program in 1908.
[ ] The Tigers won just a single game, though captain Stick Coles was selected second-team All-Southern. Stein later worked as an engineer in Bristol, Tennessee, where he and his wife, the former Camille Evans, whom he married in 1911, lived.
[ "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918" index and images, FamilySearch : accessed November 5, 2014), James Nollner Stone, 1917–1918.]
He died in 1926 in Nashville of lung cancer and oral cancer. He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.[ "Tennessee, Death Records, 1914-1955," index and images, FamilySearch : accessed November 5, 2014), James Nellner Stone, August 25, 1926; citing Mt Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, cn 18959a, State Library and Archives, Nashville; FHL microfilm 1876717.][Tennessee Death Records, Ancestry]
Head coaching record
Football
Basketball
