Chief Elkins
American football player

Chief Elkins

The basics
Quick facts
Intro
American football player
Gender:
Male
Work field:
Birth:
16 August 1899(Utica, Oneida County, New York, USA)
Death:
10 August 1966
Star sign:
Education:
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Lincoln, Lancaster County, USA
The details
Biography

Fait Vernon "Chief" Elkins (August 16, 1899 – August 9, 1966) was an American football player and decathlete.

Elkins was born in Utica, New York, in 1899. He enrolled at the Haskell Indian School at age 15. He played college football at Haskell (1921–1923), Southeastern State Teachers College, Dallas University, and Nebraska (1926–1927). He held the national decathlon record in 1928 while attending Nebraska. He pulled a tendon that prevented him from competing in the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Elkins also played professional football the National Football League (NFL) as a back for the Frankford Yellow Jackets (1928–1929), Chicago Cardinals (1929), and Cincinnati Reds (1933). He appeared in 20 NFL games, 10 as a starter.

Elkins died in Philadelphia in 1966.

He was posthumously profiled by Sports Illustrated in 1991 as "among the greatest athletes ever seen in this country — a golden sportsman during sport's golden age."