Hobey Baker Memorial Award Foundation

It isn't easy to set down Hobey Baker on paper. You get the idea that people just won't believe what you write about him, he was that good. It is as though he were created by an author of romantic, rather than realistic, attitudes. And indeed he did inspire his Princeton classmate, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to bring forward Allenby, the football captain of "This Side of Paradise," for many the greatest novel of America's post-World War I period.

There are those wrote during Baker's era, just before the Great War, that he was the greatest athlete who ever lived. You can argue with that, but not too loudly because old-timers who saw him play hockey and football at Princeton will shout you down.

Certainly he was the greatest Princeton player of that time, with a ton of talent and a carload of charisma. Jeffrey Hart penned that Baker was "probably the most charismatic athlete of all time."

Consider: he captained Princeton's hockey and football teams ... he is a charter member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame and one of a handful of Americans to be inducted into Canada's Hockey Hall of Fame ... he is a member of Princeton's Hall of Fame, both football and hockey, and each year the best hockey player in the country receives the Hobey Baker Memorial Award.

1. Candidates must exhibit strength of character both on and off the ice.   

2. Candidates must contribute to the integrity of the team and display outstanding skills in all phases of the game.  

3. Consideration should be given to scholastic achievement and sportmanship.   

4. Candidates must comply with all NCAA rules: be full time students in an accredited NCAA college or university; and complete 50% or more of the season.

It isn't easy to set down Hobey Baker on paper. You get the idea that people just won't believe what you write about him, he was that good. It is as though he were created by an author of romantic, rather than realistic, attitudes. And indeed he did inspire his Princeton classmate, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to bring forward Allenby, the football captain of "This Side of Paradise," for many the greatest novel of America's post-World War I period.