Gustave Ferbert

Gustave Herman Ferbert (July 22, 1873 – January 15, 1943), nicknamed "Dutch," was first a player (1893–1896) and then the head coach (1897–1899) for the University of Michigan American football team. In 1898, his Michigan team went 10–0 and won the first Western Conference (now known as the Big Ten Conference) championship in the school's history. He left the University of Michigan in 1900 and spent nine years prospecting for gold in Alaska, finally striking it rich off claims he discovered in 1908 and 1909.

Early life

Ferbert was born in 1873 to John C. Ferbert and Caroline Stlbbinger at Cleveland, Ohio.

University of Michigan football player

Ferbert played quarterback and right halfback for the University of Michigan from 1893 to 1896. During the four years Ferbert played, the Michigan team compiled an overall record of 33–4–1. In his senior year, 1896, the team went 9–1, winning its first nine games by a combined score of 256 to 4. In a 20–0 victory over Minnesota, Ferbert scored two touchdowns. However, the team lost the final game of the season to the University of Chicago, 7–6, in a game played indoors at the Chicago Coliseum. The newspapers reported that Pingree was the "whole thing" for Michigan in the first half, though Ferbert took his place in the second half and was "equally effective." The game was played in front of 15,000 enthusiasts in the same building in which William Jennings Bryan had been nominated for the presidency just five months earlier, and the game was "one of the most desperately contested games ever played Chicago." Neither team resorted to trick plays, "both relying on straight, hard football." Toward the end of the second half, it got very dark, and "the spectators were treated to a novelty in the shape of a football by electric light."