Patrick J. Filley was an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 guard

Guard (American football)

In American and Canadian football, a guard is a player that lines up between the center and the tackles on the offensive line of a football team....

, coach

Coach (sport)

In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...

 and university administrator. He was a native of South Bend, Indiana

South Bend, Indiana

The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...

, who played college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Notre Dame's nickname is inherited from Irish immigrant soldiers who fought in the Civil War with the Union's Irish Brigade, , recollected among other places in the poetry of Joyce Kilmer who served with one of the Irish Brigade regiments during World War I...

. He was also a state champion wrestler

Scholastic wrestling

Scholastic wrestling, sometimes known in the United States as Folkstyle wrestling, is a style of amateur wrestling practised at the high school and middle school levels in the United States. This wrestling style is essentially Collegiate wrestling with some slight modifications. It is currently...

 at Central High School in South Bend. In his four years as a football player at Notre Dame, the Irish lost only five games. Filley was twice selected capatin of the Notre Dame football team, including the 1943 national championship team

1943 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team

The 1943 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team represented the University of Notre Dame during the 1943 college football season. The Irish, coached by Frank Leahy, ended the season with 9 wins and 1 loss, winning the national championship. The 1943 team became the fourth Irish team to win the...

. He was a consensus All-American at the guard position in 1943

1943 College Football All-America Team

The 1943 College Football All-America team is composed of college football players selected as All-Americans by various organizations and writers...

.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Filley served for 29 years as a coach and administrator at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

from 1945-1984, He was first hired as the freshman team football coach. In 1955, he became an administrator, having responsibility over the years as assistant to the athletic director, ticket manager, athletic business manager, associate director of athletics in charge of operations, and associate athletic director in charge of scheduling. He was inducted into the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988.