Raymond A. Cox, Sr., Class of ’16 (Posthumous)
Cox, who served the Allegheny football squad as quarterback and captain his senior season, won three varsity letters in football, four in basketball, and four in tennis.
Cox was a member of the football teams that set three team season records and tied another. The 1913 squad scored 338 points in eight games for an average of 42.2 points per game, both school records still standing, and also tied the school record for most victories, seven.
That 7-1 team was the first of four teams with the same record (1913, 1923, 1968, 1974) but the third squad to hit the school high for victories (the 1899 team was 7-2-2; the 1902 team was 7-3), another record that still stands.
The following year, when Cox was a junior, the Gator grid squad set the school mark for the best record, 6-0-1. The team defeated Geneva, Rochester, Hiram, Duquesne, Carnegie Tech, and Grove City by a 180-17 total margin and drew with Akron, 3-3. The 6-0-1 record was tied in 1917, but has not been broken.
During the three seasons Cox lettered, the Blue and Gold accumulated an overall mark of 18-4-1, scoring 680 points and allowing just 143 points. His four-year team mark stood at 19-9-2, with 743 Allegheny points against 195 opponents’ points.
Cox led the cage teams to a four-year mark of 37-8. In both his junior and senior seasons the Blue and Gold lost just once in 12 and 10 outings, respectively. At that time Allegheny was facing such powerhouses as Syracuse, Carnegie Tech, and Pitt. And Allegheny defeated Pitt in each of the six meetings while Cox was playing, and also topped Carnegie Tech in each of the five match-ups during that era.
On the tennis courts, Cox was a member of the first team Allegheny dressed. Before World War I interrupted intercollegiate competition from 1917 through 1919, Allegheny sported an undefeated tennis squad for four years. Cox and the Gators posted 1-0, 3-0, 2-0, and 3-0 marks in 1913 through 1916, respectively. The Blue and Gold not only went undefeated in nine team matches but also ran up a 49-1 individual game tally against the opponents.
