He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach in the charter class of 1951 and was the only individual honored in both roles until the 1990s.

This five-man concept allowed his 10 (later 11) man football team the ability to compete with each other and to stay in shape over the winter.

[3] Stagg also forged a bond between sports and religious faith early in his career that remained important to him for the rest of his life.

[4] Stagg was born in a poor Irish neighborhood of West Orange, New Jersey, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy.

He spent two additional years at Yale studying in the Divinity School under William Rainey Harper before deciding he could have more influence on young men through coaching than through the pulpit.

[12] Eventually, university president Robert Maynard Hutchins forced out the 70-year-old Stagg, feeling that he was too old to continue coaching.

[13][14] At age 70, Stagg moved on to the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California,[11] where he led the Tigers for 14 seasons, from 1933 through 1946, then was asked to resign.

[15] One of his players at Pacific in 1945-46 was Hall of Fame coach of Navy and Temple Wayne Hardin.

[17] Stagg did not consume alcohol, coffee, or cigarettes and promoted the consumption of vegetables over red meat.

Both sons played for the elder Stagg as quarterbacks at the University of Chicago and each later coached college football.

[21][22][23] The NCAA Division III National Football Championship game, played in Salem, Virginia, is named the Stagg Bowl after him.

[31] At the College of William and Mary, the Amos Alonzo Stagg Society was organized during 1979–1980 by students and faculty opposed to a plan by the institution's Board of Visitors to move William and Mary back into big-time college football several decades after a scandal there involving grade changes for football players.

The Society was loosely organized but successful in combating, among other plans, a major expansion of the William and Mary football stadium.

In 1973, the NCAA instituted the D-III national championship, and the Stagg Bowl was adopted as the moniker for that game.

The game moved to Kings Island, Ohio, for the 1983 and 1984 editions, with Augustana College (Ill.) winning the first two of its four straight NCAA titles.

The Stagg Bowl returned to Phenix City for five more years, before spending three seasons in Bradenton, Florida.

[39] Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland hosted the 2022 Stagg Bowl,[40] where North Central College defeated University of Mount Union.