George K. James

George Kepford "Lefty" James (April 12, 1905 – January 9, 1994) was an American football and baseball coach.

During his first season in 1927, Bucknell's football team went 6–3–1.

It was also the first team coached by Cornell's future head coach, Carl Snavely, who later employed James.

James was also a Bucknell Bison baseball player, captaining the Diamondmen in his senior year.

Graduating during the Great Depression, James started as a high school coach in northeast and central Pennsylvania, including Canton and Jersey Shore.

Charles and the older children worked as laborers in town's woolen mills, the year after Lefty graduated from Bucknell College in 1929.

He attended secondary school at Bellefonte Academy.

James was a three-year varsity football player at Bucknell University, graduating in 1930.

From 1930 to 1934, James also played semiprofessional baseball and umpired in baseball leagues in Pennsylvania.

James was schooled by Snavely in the single-wing system while the latter coached him at Bellefonte Academy and Bucknell.

Snavely assigned James as chief scout and backfield coach in the mid-1930s.

He also assisted in basketball, served as head baseball coach, and directed the University's physical education program.

He rejoined Snavely in 1934 as assistant football coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He followed Snavely to Cornell in the spring of 1936.

He served as the head football coach at Cornell University from 1947 to 1960.

Four of his teams won unofficial Ivy League titles and he ran Cornell's physical training program during the World War II.

James was the son of Charles H. James and his spouse, Bertie.

The James lived in the Lower Allen Township, Pennsylvania during Lefty's childhood.

James became the Big Red's head football coach in 1947, succeeding Edward McKeever.

His agenda upon taking over the Cornell squad was to use Snavely's single-wing formation in tandem with the T formation introduced at Cornell by McKeever, all in order to capitalize on the Ivy League player's unique attributes, which supported a lighter, faster, thinking man's games.

The second year that Lefty James’ coached the Cornell team, the Big Red lost only to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.

This was done working with injuries and nascent, but undeveloped talent.

His freshman season as an Ivy League coach followed Cornell finishing last in the Ivies during the 1947 Season with the team inherited from Ed McKeever.

By the close of the 1948 season, Cornell was first in the Ivies, defeated Penn for the first time since 1939, closed the season 8-1.

The team had many injured, and was composed mostly of sophomores.

In the mid-1950s he would oversee the transition of Cornell into the official Ivy League.

James' teams were initially quite successful, but Cornell's fortunes had declined by the late 1950s to the point where the school decided to fire him after the 1960 season.

At the time of his dismissal, James was the longest-tenured coach in the Ivy League.

He was called 'the Dean of Ivy League coaches' by the sports press.

When finally able to speak publicly on the termination, James' said, “[a]lthough not an alumnus of Cornell, I have been a representative of this great university for twenty-five years and have always had her best interests at heart, it appears it is to the university's best interest that I resign." Following James’ termination, Ivy League sports watchers considered the firing evidence that Cornell was trying to shake-off the Ivy League’s recent endorsement of amateur athletics and transition to “big-time” football.

James' firing was not handled well.

Believing a resignation could be covered by a volunteer resignation, Athletic Director Robert Kane adopted opacity over transparency.

The result was a University employee left to work through the termination, alone and in silence.

James’ philosophy of coaching included the tenet that “[a]ny boy that wants to play football at Cornell will get a chance.” As “dean of the Ivy League” coaches, Lefty James overcame his natural shyness to represent national collegiate football on television, such as the appearance he made on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1, 1957.

James appeared at the announcement of the Collier’s All American Football Team, sponsored by General Mills.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets were the musical act for the episode.

Compared to his predecessor, McKeever, James was soft-spoken and avoided bluster and pep talks.

He was more methodological in his coaching, which was informed by his role as a professor of physical education.

James approached coaching as an act of ‘teaching’.

James held the head coach post until 1960, winning unofficial Ivy League titles in 1948, 1949, and 1953, and tying with Yale for the league crown in 1954.