The coach of the United States team that played in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and also one of the legendary coaches of the pre-NCAA era in collegiate soccer.
Jeffrey came to the United States from Scotland in 1920 to work as a railroad mechanic in central Pennsylvania, and organized teams among railroad workers in Altoona and elsewhere in Pennsylvania. In 1925, he was invited to become coach of the Penn State team, as well as being given a position in the college’s industrial engineering department that enabled him to quit his railroad job. He was the Penn State coach for 27 seasons, and his teams were undefeated in 13 of those seasons, at one point winning 65 consecutive games. There was no official national championship before the start of the NCAA tournament in 1959, but there were unofficial champions chosen, and Jeffrey’s Penn State teams won the title in 1926, 1929, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1949.
Still, Jeffrey’s greatest fame came not as Penn State coach but as a result of his only period as coach of the U.S. national team. He was the coach the day that the United States scored its historic upset of England in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, during the 1950 World Cup.
Inducted in 1951.
