John Tigert

Bio

Every young man who has ever acquired a college education as the result of an athletic grant-in-aid owes a debt of thanks to the late John J. Tigert, the Vanderbilt University backfield star at the turn of the 20th Century. He devised and implemented the athletic grant-in-aid program while serving as president of the University of Florida and U.S. Commissioner of Education. Tigert was an All-Southern selection in an era when Walter Camp generally ignored players from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to his All-America teams. He was definitely among the national leaders when it came to scholarship. A Phi Beta Kappa, Tigert became Vanderbilt's first Rhodes Scholar. Following his studies in England, he launched his most successful career as an educator, never forgetting the values of athletics. Tigert championed honesty in financial operations of collegiate athletic programs, ever alert to insure and protect the interest of the athletes. John was the grandson of Bishop Holland McTyeire, the man who obtained from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt the funds for establishment of Vanderbilt University in 1875.