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Laurens Shull
Laurens Corning "Spike" Shull (January 17, 1894 – August 5, 1918) was an All-American football player who was killed in action during World War I. He played football, baseball and basketball for the University of Chicago from 1913 to 1916. He died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Château-Thierry in July 1918. Early yearsShull was born in Sioux City, Iowa, the son of a prominent Iowa attorney, Deloss C. Shull.[1] He graduated with honors from Sioux City High School in 1912 where he was captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams.[2] University of ChicagoAfter graduating high school, Shull enrolled at the University of Chicago where he won three varsity letters in each of three sports – football, basketball and baseball. He was selected as a first-team All-Western player and a second-team All-American in 1915. In announcing Shull's selection for the 1915 All-Western team, Walter Eckersall wrote:
Shull was also captain of the Chicago Maroons baseball team in 1916 and a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, the Three Quarters Club, the Skull and Crescent, the Order of the Iron Mask, the Owl and Serpent and in his last year was selected a university marshal. He was also president of the Young Men's Christian Association during his junior year and was a delegate to a YMCA conference of student leaders at Ithaca, New York.[1][2] Business careerAfter graduating from Chicago, Shull became employed as a bank vice president at the Farmer's Bank in Woodward, Iowa.[2] During his time in Woodward, Shull coached the high school football team and served as a referee for football and basketball games throughout the state of Iowa.[1] He also became affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.[1] Service and death in World War I In May 1917, after the entry of the United States into World War I, Shull entered the U.S. Army officer training camp at Fort Snelling. In August 1917, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry.[2][4][5] He sailed for Liverpool, England on September 7, 1917, and was dispatched to France and was assigned to a Scottish regiment for training in trench warfare.[6] In December 1917, he became an officer in the 26th Infantry, Company F (later transferred to Co.G), First Division.[6] Shull and his men engaged in raids in no man's land.[2] He was deployed to Flanders where he was part of 15 engagements and was slightly injured in a German gas attack. On July 18, 1918, Shull was fatally wounded at the Battle of Château-Thierry. Three weeks later, he died at American Red Cross Hospital No. 1 at Neuilly a suburb of Paris, of complications due to bullet wounds.[2][6] Shull was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his action in leading his men against a German machine-gun nest on the day he suffered the wounds from which he died.[6] Tributes and memorials  After learning of Shull's death, Chicago's famed football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg wrote a letter to Shull's parents:
Shull's body was initially buried in the American cemetery at Suresnes, France, but his remains were returned to Sioux City in 1921 and buried in a ceremony attended by 1,000 former soldiers. The Sioux City post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Woodward, Iowa post of the American Legion were both named in Shull's honor after the war.[2] Shull was further honored in 1924 with one of the memorial columns at the new Memorial Stadium on the University of Illinois campus at Urbana, Illinois; he was one of two individuals who was not a University of Illinois student to be honored by a memorial at the new stadium.[7][8] His image wearing a doughboy uniform is also carved into the exterior of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel completed in 1928.[9] See alsoReferences
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