Eugene Leroy MERCER

Roy Mercer competed in track for Penn, but was better known as a football player for the Quakers. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955. In high school at Kennett Square High School and the George School, he competed in baseball, basketball, and lacrosse, as well as track. He set a national interscholastic record in the pole vault with a vault of 12 feet. Mercer won the IC4A long jump title in 1912 and 1913. At the 1912 Olympics, he also competed in the baseball demonstration event.

Mercer graduated from Penn with an MD degree in 1913, and then served on the staff of the Bryn Mawr and University Hospitals in Philadelphia. He did this while he was coaching and serving as athletic director at Swarthmore College. Mercer but later became Dean of the department of physical education at Penn.

Personal Bests: 100 – 11.0 (1912); 400 – 49.9 (1912); PV – 3.60 (11-9¾) (1912); LJ – 7.28 (23-10¾) (1912); Dec – 5825 (1912).