Laurens Shull

Laurens Corning "Spike" Shull (January 17, 1894 – August 5, 1918) was an All-American football player who was killed in action during World War I.

[1] He graduated with honors from Sioux City High School in 1912 where he was captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams.

[2] After graduating high school, Shull enrolled at the University of Chicago where he won three varsity letters in each of three sports – football, basketball and baseball.

[3]Shull was also captain of the Chicago Maroons baseball team in 1916 and a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, the Three Quarters Club, the Skull and Crescent, the Order of the Iron Mask, the Owl and Serpent and in his last year was selected a university marshal.

He was also president of the Young Men's Christian Association during his junior year and was a delegate to a YMCA conference of student leaders at Ithaca, New York.

[1] In May 1917, after the entry of the United States into World War I, Shull entered the U.S. Army officer training camp at Fort Snelling.

[2][4][5] He sailed for Liverpool, England on September 7, 1917, and was dispatched to France and was assigned to a Scottish regiment for training in trench warfare.

[2][6] Shull was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his action in leading his men against a German machine-gun nest on the day he suffered the wounds from which he died.

Shull died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Château-Thierry .
University of Chicago football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg wrote to Shull's parents on learning of Shull's death.
Shull's image in his doughboy uniform was sculpted into the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago .