Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century.

Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service.

Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.

[2] Baker was named after his uncle, Dr. Hobart Amory Hare, who was the obstetrician at his birth and president of the Jefferson Medical Hospital in Philadelphia.

[4] Malcolm Gordon, one of the first people to help develop hockey in the United States, was the coach of the school team and recognized Baker's skill.

[6] After his first attempt at golf he was able to score in the low 40s on the school's nine-hole course; after using roller skates for the first time, he was able to perform one-legged stunts within minutes.

He once entered St. Paul's annual cross-country race for fun and won, defeating some of the school's most proficient runners.

At the age of fifteen he was named the school's best athlete for his skill in hockey, football, baseball, tennis, swimming, and track.

[9] In one of his first games with the football team, he helped defeat rival Yale when he faked a drop-kick field goal and instead ran the ball for a touchdown.

[9] Easily recognizable on the field because he wore no helmet, Baker was referred to as "the blond Adonis of the gridiron" by Philadelphia sportswriters.

[30] The summer after graduation, Baker toured Europe as a celebrity correspondent for The New York Times, where he wrote about events like the Henley Royal Regatta.

[31] Through his Princeton classmates, he was hired by Wall Street insurance firm Johnson & Higgins upon his return to the United States.

In order to leave the arena quickly after hockey games without having to deal with the public, Baker often borrowed Pyne's valet and car.

[40] Looking for new adventures, in 1916 he joined a civilian aviation corps led by New York City attorney Phillip A. Carroll on Governors Island, off the coast of Manhattan, a privately funded program to train civilians to pass the Reserve Military Aviator flying test and receive commissions in the Signal Officers Reserve Corps.

[42] Prior to the annual Yale–Princeton football game on November 18, 1916, Baker in a Curtiss "Jenny" flown by fellow Governors Island student Cord Meyer (a Yalie), joined a squadron of New York National Guard Jennies led by Captain Raynal Bolling, the most to have ever flown in military formation, and flew to Palmer Stadium, home of the Princeton football team.

[43] The planes performed several maneuvers, to the delight of the crowd,[44] and Baker landed on the field, becoming the first person to reach a football game by air.

[45] The entry of the United States into World War I excited Baker, as it finally gave him a purpose in life and allowed him to make good use of his pilot training.

[50] Baker helped to bring down an enemy plane for the first time in his career on May 21, but due to a complicated system of confirming kills, he was not given credit for it.

[51] In a letter home describing the battle, Baker said it was the "biggest thrill I ever had in my life", and compared it to the feeling after a big sports game.

On July 20, the 13th Squadron recorded its first confirmed kill during a flight led by Baker; he and two other men shot down a German plane.

[57] Various delays in the arrival of planes and equipment meant that Baker's squadron was unable to participate in the final major offensives of the war.

[60] Missing his fiancée and the excitement of the war, he felt directionless; he dreaded going back to work in an office and considered himself a sportsman rather than a businessman.

[55] Reluctant to leave France and return to his life in America, he decided to take a final flight at his squadron's airfield in Toul.

[64][65] He was quickly freed from the aircraft by his men, but died in an ambulance minutes later;[66] his orders to return home were found in his jacket pocket.

Though newspapers reported that Baker had died as a result of engine failure, unsubstantiated rumors began to circulate that his death was not accidental.

[70] He could have returned to America and played professional sport, where he could have earned far more money than from a job in finance, but his upbringing made that impossible for him.

[71] A career in business held no appeal; during a weekend vacation with a fellow Princeton graduate, Baker revealed that he felt his life was over, and he would never again experience the thrills of football or hockey.

However, Davies refused to elaborate on what he called the "suicide theory of [Baker's] enigmatic death", as he feared that "some of the old guard would be furious if they thought I was trying to prove it".

[16] Baker's honors included a citation on March 27, 1919, by General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, for exceptional bravery on May 21, 1918, when he brought down his first plane.

[80] Since 1950, Princeton has awarded the Hobey Baker Trophy to the "freshman hockey player who, among his classmates, in play, sportsmanship and influence has contributed most to the sport.