Curley Byrd - College Career

College Career

In 1905, Byrd graduated from Crisfield High School and enrolled at the Maryland Agricultural College, which is now known as the University of Maryland. Byrd was a star college athlete and participated in varsity football, baseball, and track. He served as the football team captain in 1907, as the pitcher on the baseball team, and set a school record 10.0-second 100-yard dash in track. Before leaving Crisfield, Byrd's father warned him not to "try to play that thing called football." He ignored the advice and reported for football practice where head coach Fred K. Nielsen told the undersized Byrd to "play with the kids" and that "football's a man's game." He was allowed, however, to fill in as an end on the scout team due to a shortage of players. After sitting out the first three games, Nielsen sent Byrd in as a substitute against Navy, and his play was impressive enough to earn a position on the first team. After the elder Byrd read of his son's newfound stardom in the newspaper, he wrote, "Since you're going to play football, I'm glad to see you're doing it well." During the summers and on weekends, Byrd supplemented his income by continuing work as a fisherman. He graduated second in his class with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in 1908.

After graduation from Maryland, Byrd spent the next three years doing graduate work in law and journalism at George Washington University, Georgetown University, and Western Maryland College (now known as McDaniel College). In a time before eligibility limitations, he played football at George Washington and Georgetown and ran track at Western Maryland. At Georgetown in 1909, he was called the first quarterback in the East to master the forward pass, several years before Gus Dorais of Notre Dame did so in 1913. According to The Georgetown Hoyas: A Story of A Rambunctious Football Team, Dorais's "end-over-end 'discus' throw was an exact copy" of Byrd's passing technique, and the Irish "got the headlines because they had a press agent and Georgetown didn't."

Byrd also played for Maryland-based semi-professional baseball teams while pursuing his graduate studies. In 1910, the Chicago White Sox signed Byrd, but he was soon traded to the San Francisco Seals, a semi-professional Pacific Coast League baseball team with whom he pitched in 1912. He returned to Maryland later that year, and in 1913, married Katherine Dunlop Turnbull. Before they divorced twenty years later, the couple had three sons and a daughter: Harry, Sterling, William, and Evelyn.