The Ban, the Concussion, and Sid Gepford’s Last Year

On September 9, 1924, in Marion, Illinois, Sid Gepford died by suicide. The event ended a record that had begun with athletic distinction, passed through a university ban, and returned to football before his final year. What followed was not a single settled explanation, but a set of accounts: an injury, reported headaches, a family attribution, and words preserved in newspaper memory.

In November 1919, while enrolled at Millikin University, Gepford and Roy Adkins took money to play for the Staley semi-professional team against Taylorville. The Staleys won 21–7. Gepford had captained Millikin’s basketball team, but the payment carried a direct institutional cost: Millikin banned both men from university athletics. The record identifies the athletic ban, not a formal disciplinary hearing.

During a fall 1923 game against Butler University, Gepford suffered a severe concussion and continued playing, according to the Staley Museum’s account. In summer 1924, while working at the Staley starch plant, he experienced headaches. After his death, his mother attributed what she described as irrational behavior to head problems caused by football. That was a family explanation, not a medical diagnosis; the accounts document the injury and headaches without establishing that football caused his death.

A later memorial page reproduces a newspaper excerpt saying Gepford wrote five letters before he shot himself. The same excerpt says an open note read, “the history classes worried me to death.” The phrase remains the clearest surviving statement attributed directly to Gepford, while the surrounding record leaves the cause of his death undetermined.