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Chester C. Dillon

American football player and coach, basketball coach, baseball coach, college athletics administrator (1887–1971)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ20711668
Source-derived summary

Chester C. Dillon (January 14, 1887 – October 22, 1971) was an American football player, coach of football, basketball, and baseball, college athletics administrator, and educator. He was the head football coach at Dakota Wesleyan University (1915), Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa (1916–1917), Howard College in Birmingham, Alabama—now known as Samford University (1919, 1927–1928), Oshkosh State Normal School—now known as the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh (1920), Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky (1929–1930), and Jacksonville State Teachers College—now known as Jacksonville State University (1938–1939, 1945). Dillon also served as the athletic director at each of those schools.

Early life and playing career

Dillon was born on January 14, 1887, in Normal, Illinois. He graduated from high school in Normal in 1905 and then attended Illinois State Normal University—now known as Illinois State University—also located in Normal. He played football at Illinois State Normal from 1905 to 1907 as a halfback and captained the 1907 team. In March 1907, Dillon was hired as a teacher of literature and Latin and track coach at the University of Middle Tennessee, located in Tullahoma, Tennessee. He returned to Illinois State Normal that fall to complete his studies and captain the football team.

Dillon went to the University of Illinois in 1909 and was elected captain of the freshmen football team. He played for three seasons, from 1910 to 1912, for the Illinois varsity football team at halfback before graduating in 1913.

Editorial summary

“Chester C. Dillon” enters the record as american football player and coach, basketball coach, baseball coach, college athletics administrator (1887–1971). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chester, Dillon and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1887, 1971, 1915, 1916—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-01-14. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Chester, Dillon and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Chester C. Dillon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chester, Dillon and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20711668. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1971, 1915 and 1916.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Chester C. Dillon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Chester C. Dillon primary sources, Chester C. Dillon archive and Chester research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chester C. Dillon”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Chester C. Dillon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.