In the mid -1920s, the Medford High School Tigers football and basketball teams coached by Prink Callison routinely won state championships in football and basketball.
One outstanding player was Albert “Al” Melvin, a two-time all-state basketball forward and quarterback for two state championship football teams. Melvin gained a reputation as the school’s greatest athlete ever.
In 1931, as a 22-year-old student at the Marysville Junior College in California, Melvin was fatally injured while diving over a high jump standard during a track meet. Although he was buried without a marker at the IOOF cemetery in Medford, memory of Melvin lived on.
In 1942, contributions from the public, former schoolmates, and the high school lettermen’s society raised money to buy a headstone for Melvin’s grave. The Medford Mail Tribune noted that the Oregon Granite Co. “did its part by furnishing a marker listed at a considerably higher price than the $37 raised could have bought.”
In 1985, the high school created the Medford Sports Hall of Fame, choosing Melvin from all the other athletes over the years as its charter member.
Sources: 75 Years of Medford Football. Medford Linebackers Club, 1987, www.amazon.com/Years-Medford-Football-Oregon-Linebackers/dp/B000HJ68WI. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018; "Melvin Memorial Marker In Place Early this Week." Medford Mail Tribune, 7 June 1942, p. 2, truwe.sohs.org/files/stones.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.
