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Dode Phillips

American football player and coach (1900-1965)

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 revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ21069969
Source-derived summary

David Gardiner "Dode" Phillips III (January 2, 1900 – December 29, 1965) was an American football player and coach. He coached high school in Anderson, South Carolina and then his alma mater. He also played several years of minor league baseball before committing to coaching full-time at Moultrie High School in Georgia. Moultrie High won the south Georgia title in 1928. Phillips worked for NBC WFBC as a sports analyst and color commentator in 1937 and 1938 before returning to the sideline as an assistant for Jakie Todd at Erskine. In 1941, Todd was appointed as chief of the state pardon and parole board. Phillips took over and coached Erskine for the final three games of the season.

In 1950, a pool of sportswriters named him the best athlete of the first half of the 20th century in South Carolina. Phillips played for the Erskine Flying Fleet of Erskine College. He was inducted to the school's sports hall of fame.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Dode Phillips” as american football player and coach (1900-1965). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1900, 1965, 1928, 1937—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1900-01-02. The account is most persuasive where Dode, Phillips and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american football player and coach (1900-1965). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21069969. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1965, 1928 and 1937.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. 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 “Dode Phillips”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dode Phillips primary sources, Dode Phillips archive and Dode 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 “Dode Phillips”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dode Phillips” 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.