Best known as an athlete and pioneering college coach in multiple sports (primarily football), Coach Stagg (August 16, 1862, to March 17, 1965) began his coaching career at Williston Academy as the first paid coach of football (1890 and 1891), and also coached the 1891 baseball team. Subsequently, he coached football at what is now Springfield College, the University of Chicago (1892–1932), and the College of the Pacific (1933–1946), compiling a career college football record of 314–199–35.

His Chicago Maroons teams of 1905 and 1913 were recognized as national champions. He was also the head basketball coach for one season at the University of Chicago (1920–1921), and the head baseball coach there for 19 seasons (1893–1905, 1907–1913). Coach Stagg played football as an end at Yale University and was selected to the first College Football All-America Team in 1889.

He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach in the charter class of 1951 and was the only individual honored in both roles until the 1990s.

Stagg reduced the size of his basketball team to five players so that his 10-man football team could compete with each other and to stay in shape over the winter. Stagg was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in its first group of inductees in 1959. Amos Stagg coached college football for 70 years; in his honor, the NCAA Division III championship game is named the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.