| Wins against Kentucky - 7 | Losses against Kentucky - 19 |
Alma Mater: Vanderbilt [1920] (*)
Hometown: Franklin, TN
Date Born: June 11, 1892
Date Died: June 19, 1961
Overall Record: 296-291 [27 Seasons]
[Former All-American football player at Vanderbilt]
Biography - Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
Cody was an All-Southern honoree in three of those four seasons. He came to Vandy in 1914 when the Vandy program hit a low with just two victories in eight games. Then Vandy caught fire, posting 9-1-0 and 7-1-1 records over the next two campaigns and establishing its program as one of the best. The only losses came at the hands of Virginia, in 1915, and Tennessee, in 1916. World War I interrupted Cody's collegiate football career, but he returned to capture All-Southem laurels once again in 1919 when the Commodores finished 5-1-2. During his four varsity seasons, Cody lifted Vandy to 23 victories in 35 games. Cody was named to All-America teams in 1915 and 1919. Following graduation, Cody entered coaching and directed teams at Clemson, Mercer, Vanderbilt, Florida and Temple before retiring in 1961 at the age of 67.
A teammate of Cody's once said, "He was a farm boy and he had no polish, but he was very honest and sincere. He didn't have a scholarship - we had none in those days - but he had a real job. He literally cleaned the gymnasium every day, cleaned up the locker rooms and the showers, and tended to the coal furnace, after practice."
Cody is remembered in legendary style. Teammates remember that he didn't like to wear pads, so he cut up an old quilt and sewed it into the shoulders of his jersey. His players remember his team spirit. Cody often said to his team, "If our team can't go together, we won't go." They went together. Others remember his legendary appetite. He once challenged the Georgia coach to a chicken eating contest and beat him by 11 chickens. An onlooker said, "He wasn't satisfied just to win. He just went on to a decisive victory." Friends of Cody would agree that statement applied to everything the champion attempted.
Cody died June 19, 1961 in Mt. Laurel, N.J. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1970.
Obituary - Philadelphia Daily News (June 22, 1961)
A Giant Named Josh Cody by Larry Merchant
Josh Cody had a wonderful sense of humor and he loved dearly to tell stories but if you talk to a hundred people who knew him, intimately or at a distance, they cannot remember the funny things he said or the stories he told. He was such a giant of a man in so many ways that he loomed far above his talent for small entertainment. People came away from Josh Cody with a Bunyonesque image of strength and character.
"The finest gentleman I ever knew... Integrity... Great principles.... The Kind of individual I'd want my son to play under ... Dignity... Always fair...."
This was how he impressed the men close to him in two decades at Temple. He stood tall for all the good things about athletics and he guarded them zealously.
"He brought a boy to Temple of tremendous promise when he was basketball coach," recalled a professor who asked for his name o be withheld. "The boy started out all right but he got lazy and started to miss classes. Josh heard about it. One morning he went to the boy's apartment and found him in bed. 'Pack your things and go home,' he told him. The boy left school."
When Temple was set to go to the NCAA tournament in Charlotte, N.C., in 1957 Cody instinctively thought of the Negro players. "if our team can't go together," he insisted, "we won't go." They went together.
Farmboy Becomes Legend at Vandy
Yet Cody was and is a much larger legend in the South than he was anywhere else for he came off a Tennessee farm to do great things at Vanderbilt. He was an All-American tackle and he won 13 letters in four sports. Later he coached at Clemson, Mercer, Florida and his alma mater. He was an unforgettable man.
"When I think of Josh in his college days," said Fred Russell of the Nashville Banner, I get a mental picture of this great big fellow playing catcher in the spring and, between innings, running out beyond the outfield to throw the shot or the discus in a track meet, still in uniform. He was unbelievably skillful and nimble for a big man in basketball, and in football, well, he's a legend down here."
Another newspaperman said there was something noble about Josh Cody. He was huge yet gentle and the old frontier was etched on his good, plain face.
Ralph McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, spoke about Josh Cody. "He was a great big fellow and one of the most seriously dedicated fellows I ever met," said McGill, a teammate of Cody's in 1919. "He was a farm boy and he had no polish, but he was very honest and sincere. He didn't have a scholarship - we had none in those days - but he had a real job. He literally cleaned the gymnasium every day, cleaned up the locker rooms and the showers, and tended to the coal furnace, after practice."
Won Eating Contest by 11 Chickens
"He was a big man, squarely built, quiet, almost shy, and enormously decent. He practiced long hours to place kick and became the team's place kicker. He wasn't fast, but he was fast for a big man. He didn't like to wear pads. He got ahold of an old quilt and sewed it into the shoulders of the jersey and that was all the padding he wore."
As a coach Cody was renowned for little superstitions (when winning, he'd keep basketball subs seated in the same order for game after game, and he had infielders use the same practice ball) and a voracious appetite. "He gloried in the table," McGill said.
"When he was at Clemson he had a contest with Herman Stegeman, the coach at Georgia," said Russell. "Josh weighed about 260 then. He outstripped Stegeman by 11 chickens. He wasn't satisfied just to win. He just went on to a decisive victory."
"I got two chickens ahead of him early," the gray-haired forager once said, "and just coasted."
In later years at Temple Cody reduced, under doctor's orders, but proved willing and able on several occasions to eat a few profs under the table. Guy Rodgers, once challenged him to a popsicle-devouring contest. "Josh's psychology was to get an early jump," said Temple publicist Al Shrier. "Guy bowed out early. He could tell he was outclassed."
Joshua Crittenden Cody died last Sunday at the age of 69. His immortality brushed off on a lot of people. People like Ralph McGill, a giant among giants. When I called him and said I had heard he was a friend of Josh Cody, he said, "I would like to think I was his friend."
