Bonus Photos

Enjoy some more photos and other fun content that help paint Fergie’s remarkable story.

Letter to Coach from Southern Hotel, 1940

While not immune from pinching the occasional souvenir, the Arkansas A & M players were such perfect “gentlemen” during their fall 1940 stay at Denton, Texas’ Southern Hotel that its president knocked off a chunk of the bill and wrote this nice letter to Coach Ferguson.

Example of newspaper

As depicted 23 times (BEAT LEAD!) in the November 11, 1924 Deadwood Pioneer-Times excerpt, Fergie quickly learned that beating Lead meant everything to the Deadwood community.

1929 Bolton HS Track Team

Hired as a history teacher and track coach, Ferguson (top right) found the academically driven Bolton High to be a revelation. For the first time, he started to think about the relationship between athletics and education.

Fergie talking to the team

Fergie spoke softly, but always had the undivided attention of his ‘boys’. (Credit: Lead-Deadwood High School)

The team practicing on a pacific coast beach.

A little pacific coast beach ‘practice’ for the 1940 Wandering Weevils.

Old newspaper comics: "We oughta have a swell season - we've lost two already!"

Courtesy of a nutty contract, Ferguson’s 1939–1941 A & M football teams were free to dial up the hijinks. (Credit: Pittsburgh Press)

Mark Payne

In 1915, Dakota Wesleyan’s Mark Payne set an NCAA record for longest drop kick (63 yards) that still stands. Convinced that shattering Payne’s feat would bring him national attention, Stewart Ferguson spectacularly failed in his secret attempt, professing “Jesus wept and so did I.”