Polly Wallace

Leigh Allen "Polly" Wallace (February 10, 1898 – February 9, 1971) was an American football player, wrestler and wrestling coach.

Early years
Wallace was born in 1898. He graduated from Oklahoma City High School in 1916, where he played football and basketball. He then played football at the center position for the Iowa State Cyclones football team. His athletic career was interrupted by military service during World War I. He returned to Iowa State after the war and was selected by Walter Eckersall as a first-team player on the 1920 College Football All-America Team.

Coaching career
Wallace later became the wrestling coach at the University of Oklahoma.

Wallace served as the head football coach and athletic director at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1924. He was the head football coach at East Central University (then known as East Central State Normal School) in Ada, Oklahoma form 1927 to 1933.

Family and later years
Wallace moved to Great Falls, Montana, in 1937 to work with lumber dealers. He later operated a lumber yard there. He also served several terms as the county's treasurer.

Wallace died in 1971. He was jogging along Tenth Avenue South near Great Falls when he was struck by a car as he tried to cross the street.

Wallace was posthumously inducted into the Iowa State Hall of Fame in 2000.

Wallace and his wife, Nellie, had two children, a son and a daughter. His son, Leigh A. Wallace Jr., became an Episcopalian bishop.