Louisiana's (SLI) 1925 Team captain and quarterback.
Keener Cagle.
Christian "Red" Cagle

Chris "Red" Cagle played as a quarterback with exceptional halfback skills for Louisiana (SLI) from 1922-1925. He was inducted into the College football hall of fame in 1954

His teammates usually called Cagle "Chris" "Red Flash" or just "Red," but sportswriters liked to call him "Onward Christian" because of his ability to advance the ball.

Cagle’s Sr. year at Louisiana was very productive. By one account he scored 120 points, by another he scored 108 points, which would still be good enough to be fifth best in the nation for 1925.

Cagle was a high school star at Merryville, LA who went on to collegiate greatness at Louisiana, Army, and the NFL.

His Jr. year at Louisiana, he completed 54 percent of his passes for 859 yards. 1924 was still in the era of the fat ball. In one game against LSU connected on 22 of 33 passes.

Even today 2002 Chris Cagle stands behind only NFL great Brian Mitchell, in the run/pass department at Louisiana. When you consider that Brian Mitchell is the NCAA's most prolific run/pass quarterback ever. Chris Cagle is in select company.

In his last year at Louisiana, Cagle personally scored 93 points which was a school record till 1989. That same year 1925 as split duty quarterback he rushed for 1048 yards and passed for 944 in an era were the balls were not aerodynamic and the passing game was not fully adopted.

He led the team to a 7-2 record. They played at Girard field.

In his three years at Louisiana (freshman played separately), he ran back 10 punts for touchdowns.

Besides lettering in football he also lettered in Football, Baseball, Basketball. Chris Cagle is a tribute to the University of Louisiana.

In 1929 while in the Army Chris Cagle won the precursor to the Heisman trophy.

This is all great stuff, Turbine. What was the name of the award (the precursor to the Heisman) that Cagle won? I'd like to know more about him.

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Originally posted by RyChat ...What was the name of the award (the precursor to the Heisman) that Cagle won? ...

HELMS HALL Hall of Fame award.

"College Football Player of the Year"

A couple of names you might recognize that won the HELMS HALL, Hall of Fame award were Knute Rockne and George Gipp "Win one for the Gipper"

ps Chris Cagle is also in the NFL Hall of Fame.

This monument is located just inside the fence at the south entrance to the Swamp

In the late 50's it was placed near his grave in New Rhodes, Louisiana.
In 1992 it was moved to Cajun Basin.

After playing at Louisiana for 5 years, Cagle became a three-time All-American halfback at Army from 1927 to 1929. He was considered one of the best run-pass-kick combination players in the game.

He was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy in 1926 and was an All-American halfback three straight years, 1927 through 1929. A fast, deceptive runner, Cagle scored touchdowns on a 53-yard run and a pass reception in Army's 18-0 win over Notre Dame in 1927. In a 21-21 tie with Navy, Cagle had a 44-yard touchdown run and caught another touchdown pass.

Against Yale in 1928, Cagle had touchdown runs of 51 and 76 yards in an 18-6 win, and he scored on a 37-yard run in a 13-3 victory over Nebraska. Cagle captained the team in 1929, when he had five touchdown runs of 35 yards or more, including one of 70 yards.

Cagle had married secretly in August of 1928, a violation of West Point rules. When his marriage was revealed after the 1929 season, he was forced to resign before graduating. He played in the NFL with the New York Giants from 1930 through 1932.


The 1933 season was a landmark season in the NFL and initiated the beginning of the modern era with many innovations, including relaxation of the rules on passing, moving the goal posts back to the goal lines, and splitting the league into two divisions. Among the more interesting happenings was the purchase of the Dodgers by two former New York Giants players, Chris Cagle and John "Shipwreck" Kelly. The price was $25,000.

Cagle had been an All-American at West Point and played three seasons for the Giants. Kelly had starred at Kentucky and played one season as a Giant. The scion of a wealthy family, he was an early day "Broadway Joe" whose off the field exploits were recorded along with his on the field feats.

In 1933, he and "Shipwreck" Kelly became co-owners of the NFL's Brooklyn Dodgers franchise and Cagle played for the team in 1933 and 1934.

On December 23, 1942, Cagle was found unconscious in a Manhattan subway station. He died three days later of a fractured skull.

born May 1, 1905, DeRidder, LA
died Dec. 26, 1942

Credit to Pasttimesports


Cagle at Army

Nice pic of Cagle afer UL.

This answers some questions I had about the black and white photos, as to whether or not the leather helmets could have been vermilion in color. The answer is yes.

From AustinCajun's link, Leather Helmets

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Bruce Brown LAFAYETTE - Christian Keener Cagle was the greatest football player ever produced by the University o Louisiana, certainly until the 1986 arrival of Brian Mitchell. Cagle, who played from 1922-25 at then-Southwestern Louisiana Institute, went on to star at West Point after his stay here. While at Army, he was named the nation's best collegiate player, one year before the award would be called the Heisman Trophy. But, as much national acclaim as Cagle earned at West Point, perhaps the real measure of his greatness came on Oct. 6, 1923 when he led the SLI Bulldogs in a near-upset of LSU in Baton Rouge. UL and LSU will renew their football series on Saturday in Tiger Stadium, playing for the first time since 1938. The Cajuns have never beaten the Tigers in 18 tries, and over the final eight meetings in the series LSU outscored its Bayou State neighbors 455-0, an average of 56.875 points per game to none including a 93-0 count in 1936. But, thanks to Cagle, there was one day when the unthinkable almost occured. The Merryville redhead dazzled the Tigers on that October day in 1923, hitting 22-of-33 passes for 233 yards - unheard of numbers in an era when the ball was more a rounded rugby ball than the pointed missile it is today. New Iberia's Alton Bujard was the target for many of those aerials, as well as a factor in the Bulldogs' ground game. Coach T.R. Mobley's Bulldogs (they didn't become Cajuns until the 1960s) took the fight to the surprised Tigers of coach Mike Donahue, outgaining LSU 278-198. Place kicker A.O. Landry attempted three drop-kick field goals, with one successful shot, and the visitors held a 3-0 lead into the fourth quarter. A goal line fumble ruined another scoring chance that could have made the score 10-0. LSU got no closer to the SLI goal than the Bulldogs' 30-yard line until four minutes remained in the contest. But Donahue's squad finally mounted a desperate march to avoid the upset, with Gus Jackson doing much of the damage on the ground. The narrow defeat at LSU was the third straight to open the season for SLI, coming on the heels of losses to Centenary and Tulane, and its last for the year. The Bulldogs stormed past their final seven opponents by a combined 235-45 points to earn a 7-3 record. LSU, on the other hand, had trouble recovering from its near-miss win. The Tigers defeated Spring Hill 33-0 the next week to stand 3-0 on the year, but lost five of their last six to finish 3-5-1. Many of Cagle's statistics have faded with history, although he was the school's career scoring leader with 235 points until Mitchell eclipsed him in 1989 with 286. But there was one afternoon's work that may never be forgotten in Cajun football history. That was the day Keener Cagle was almost a giant-killer. There is no link to this article on the web

Kenner Cagle

An all around athlete he was also a great kicker.

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Some say Christian Keener Cagle was the best football player ever to set foot on the then-SLI campus and that the comparison holds even today. What I didn't know was he also was pretty fair at the shot put. That's according to a 1925 letter from the school's president to John Foster, sports editor of the New York Sun, who'd written about Cagle's exploits on the gridiron in the fall of 1924. "In 1924," Foster wrote, "Southwestern, with a total of 125 forward passes, completed 67 successfully. That is a percentage of 53.5, and the students and coaches of the institute are quite sure that they made a world's record when they did it. "Anyhow, they have claimed the record for proficiency in that respect and if there is any other college in the United States which can produce better figures, the Southwestern boys would like to see them. The rest of the story Jim Bradshaw