NFF Gold Medal Recipients
Biography
Don Lourie was quietly modest and faultlessly self-controlled. Walter Camp, naming Lourie his All-America quarterback in 1920, called him "the remarkable little general, disclosing every weak point of the opposition." It was Lourie's junior year, and he helped Princeton to a 6-0-1 record. The Tigers won six games and played a 14-14 tie with Harvard.
Lourie was a quarterback in the short punt formation taught by his coach, Bill Roper. In a 20-0 victory over Yale, Lourie had a 40- yard touchdown run. Princeton opened the 1921 season with a 21-7 victory over Swarthmore as Lourie scored touchdowns on 15 and 60-yard runs. But he missed half the season with an injury.
At the close of his college career he received the Poe Cup and Arthur Wheeler Awards for outstanding scholarship, leadership, and athletic performance. He was senior class president. Lourie joined the Quaker Oats Company and rose to the rank of company president in 1947. In 1948, he was named to the all-time Princeton team.
In 1964, he was given the National Football Foundation's Gold Medal, awarded for achievement in life. Princeton created the Donold B. Lourie Award, given each year to the outstanding freshman player. Lourie was born August 22, 1899, in Decatur, Alabama; he died January 15, 1990, in Wilmette, Illinois.
