Background
Edgerton was born on October 2, 1879 in Johnston County, North Carolina to Gabriel Griffin Edgerton and his wife Harriet Copeland but moved to Lebanon, Tennessee, to join his older brother, Howard K. Edgerton, a physician, in 1896.
Edgerton was born on October 2, 1879 in Johnston County, North Carolina to Gabriel Griffin Edgerton and his wife Harriet Copeland but moved to Lebanon, Tennessee, to join his older brother, Howard K. Edgerton, a physician, in 1896.
He attended for prep school and his first year of college.
Edgerton was also an All-Southern college football fullback for the Vanderbilt Commodores of
After receiving the Wilson County Cartmell scholarship, he went to, earning an Bachelor of Arts in 1902 and an M.A in 1903. He played at Cumberland as a guard in 1896. Football
Edgerton was captain of the 1901 team
West. A. Reynolds in the Atlanta Constitution selected Edgerton for his All-Southern team in 1902, and he was selected a second team fullback on an All-Time Vandy Team published in 1912, behind Owsley Manier.
Edgerton was called by one contemporary writer "one of the best backs yet produced in Dixie."
Track and field
Bachelor of Ugliness
In the spring semester of 1902, that honor was given to football star John Edgerton. Edgerton was considered such a celebrity that advertisers in the Hustler used his name to sell their products.
One account reads: "John Edgerton, whose last year was 1903, was in speed and size the type of man which made the Yale teams of the early nineties so powerful. After leaving college he became one of the head masters at the Columbia Military Academy at Columbia, and is now manager and part owner of a woolen mill at Lebanon, Tennessee"
In 1904 Edgerton coached football at
Edgerton’s national prominence led to notable government appointments.
He also supported Prohibition causes and served as chairman of the United Prohibition Forces to preserve the Eighteenth Amendment.
Edgerton was a vocal opponent of the Highlander Folk School.
Edgerton was a prominent member of the Vanderbilt football team Edgerton was also a member of the track team In President Warren Harding’s administration during the early 1920s, he was a member of the president’s conference on unemployment, and later in President Herbert Hoover’s administration from 1929 to 1933 he was on the National Reconstruction Conference and the National Re-employment Committee.
