Endowed Scholarship Fund
FLYING SQUADRON LETTERMEN SCHOLARSHIP
Represented by Mr. Gerald F. Eggleston '51of Lexington, Virginia.

      

The 1920 Flying Squadron Team--Capt. Jimmie Leech
 

The Flying Squadron Lettermen Scholarship was established by bequest from the estate of the late Peter Otey Miller '22 to assist cadet-athletes who otherwise might be unable to continue their education at VMI.

The first VMI Football Team to be called the "FLYING SQUADRON" was the 1920 Team coached by Blandy Clarkson. It was also the last team to play its games on the Parade Ground.

The 1920 Flying Squadron Team was VMI's only undefeated, and untied football team in the 20th Century; that season it defeated 9 teams, including VPI, UVA, Univ. of Pennsylvania, UNC and NC State. It scored 431 points against 20 for its competitors, and was unscored on in six of its nine victories.

The team includes such greats as Jimmy Leech, Frank Summers, Jere Bunting and "Tuggy" Stuart, but Col. R.B. Poague wrote for the 1921 BOMB that: "The vital fact in the success of the team was the fine spirit of the players who, without exception, were willing to subordinate their own chances for prominence to the general welfare of the teams. We had stars aplenty, but they shone as members of a system rather than as individuals."

Jimmy Leech might probably be recognized as VMI's greatest athlete in its collegiate history.

Leech is the school's only representative in the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame and the first alumnus selected for the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.

He was a native of Rockbridge County and matriculated at VMI in 1916. "His cadetship was interrupted in WWI by service in the Marine Corps. As a first classman, he commanded C Company, played varsity baseball, sat on the Athletic Council, and served as captain of the baksetball team and president of the Monogram Club. His most enduring fame resulted from his play as halfback and captain of the 1920 Flying Squadron. He scored 210 points that season and his 26 TDs that year stood as a college record for over 20 years."

Taken from The Corps Roots The Loudest by Col. Tom Davis '64.

Cadets James T. Boatright III '11 (Football) and Jeremy N. Adams '08 (Wrestling) are recognized in the name of the Flying Squadron Lettermen Scholarship
for the 2007-08 school year.