Colby Slater

Colby Slater

Player information
Full name	Colby Edward Slater
birthday	April 30, 1896
place of birth	Berkeley , United States
date of death	January 30, 1965
Place of death	Clarksburg , United States
Nickname	"Babe"
society
society	Career ended
position	Second row striker
National team
Years	National team	Games (points)
1920-1924	United States	2 (0)

Colby Edward "Babe" Slater (born April 30, 1896 in Berkeley , California , † January 30, 1965 in Clarksburg , California) was an American rugby union player. He was a double Olympic champion in 1920 and 1924 , although the second-in-line striker only made two appearances for the US selection .

Slater was a talented athlete: with Berkeley High School he was California rugby champion in 1911 and 1912, before he went to University Farm School (now University of California, Davis ) in 1914 , where he joined the college teams for rugby union , American football , and basketball Baseball belonged. After graduating in 1917, he was drafted into the US Army and served in the medical corps in Belgium and France during World War II .

Upon his discharge from the military in 1919, Slater became a rancher in Woodland , California; he remained loyal to the sport as player-coach of the basketball and American football teams of the local section of the American Legion , the football team won the championship of Northern California in 1927 under his direction.

In 1920 he was appointed to the all-California US selection for the Olympic rugby tournament in Antwerp , which was Olympic champion through a surprising victory against the only other participant France . In 1924 he was appointed captain of the US team for the Olympic rugby tournament in Paris , his older brother Norman was also part of the team. In the first game, a 39-0 win against Romania , he was not used. Only in the final against the top favorites France he was used and led the team to defend their title.

Because of his sporting achievements, Slater was President of the Woodland Chamber of Agriculture in the 1950s. The University of California, Davis honors the university's most successful athlete with the "Babe" Slater Perpetual Athletic Trophy each year , and in 1980 the University of Slater was inducted into its Hall of Fame ; he is also a Hall of Famer for the City of Woodland.

Web links

Commons : Colby Slater  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Scrum database: entry on Colby Slater. ESPN , accessed August 14, 2009 . 
2. ^ Daniella Thompson: East Bay Then and Now: The Slater-Irving Connection Was Sealed in Paraffine. In: The Berkeley Daily Planet. June 1, 2007, accessed August 14, 2009 . 
3. ^ ^{A b c} Melissa Tyler: Inventory of the Colby E. "Babe" Slater Collection, 1906-2001 (bulk 1917-1957). Department of Special Collections - General Library - University of California, Davis, June 2004, accessed August 14, 2009 . 
4. ↑ RugbyFootballHistory.com: rugby at the Olympics. 2007, accessed August 14, 2009 .