Oberlin College Athletics

Geoffrey Blodgett was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate and earned three varsity letters in football and one in track. He also received his numerals as a member of the freshman football and track teams and played on the freshman basketball team.

Blodgett was a first-team All-Ohio Conference selection as a senior when he set the school single-season receiving record with 31 receptions for 680 yards with seven touchdowns. He was named to the Associated Press All-Ohio Team as an honorable mention selection and was ranked in the top 20 of the nation's small-college players. Blodgett also led the team in receiving as a junior with 18 receptions for 327 yards.

After graduating from Oberlin, he spent two years in the United States Navy then entered Harvard, where he earned a master's degree in 1956 and a doctorate in 1961. In 1960 he returned to Oberlin, where he held numerous research fellowships and received awards from local and national organizations during his 40-year tenure as a member of the faculty. In 1988 he was named the Robert S. Danforth Professor of History. His publishing credits include 98 articles and three books. Blodgett is largely credited with "saving" football at Oberlin in the late 1970s with his passionate arguments in support of the program at a time when there was serious discussion within the faculty to eliminate the sport.

Blodgett died in 2001, leaving his wife, Jane '54, and daughters, Lauren, Barbara and Sally. That year, the Geoffrey T. Blodgett Endowed Memorial Scholarship Fund was established for students concentrating in American history and American architecture.