Hall of Fame
Position: Guard
Years: 1935-1937
Place of Birth: Chapel Hill, TX
Date of Birth: Oct 18, 1914
Place of Death: Belgium
Date of Death: Dec 10, 1944
Jersey Number: 43
Height: 6-0
Weight: 193
High School: Brenham, TX (Brenham HS)
They were not the most successful years for Texas A&M football teams, yet lineman Joe Routt turned the mid-1930s into seasons of personal glory and achievement that established him as one of the Aggies' all-time great players. Routt was big, powerful and aggressive to a ferocious point. He handled rival linemen as though they were match sticks. Opposing coaches often assigned three linemen to contain him, and still he cracked through the wall to make the tackle. Famed sportswriter Grantland Rice had this to say of Routt: "He was a glutton for hard, all-afternoon play and was at his best when the going was toughest. Routt used a system of stacking up a whole side of the opposing line, thereby breaking up a play and allowing a teammate to make a tackle." Routt appeared in the annual East-West Shrine Game in San Francisco and was named the Outstanding Lineman. Routt went to war in 1940 as an U.S. Army Infantry Captain and was killed in action, leading his troops in the Battle of the Bulge, December 10, 1944, in Belgium. He was elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1952 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1962. His citation read: "In war as in football, Joe Routt was a true leader of men, ever prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice."
