Otto Carpell

Who was Otto Carpell?

Otto Christ Carpell was an American football player for the University of Michigan. He played halfback for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1909 to 1912. He became an aviation combat pilot during World War I and was one of four Michigan football players to be killed in the war.

Carpell was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1889, the son of Maximillian A. and Elizabeth Carpell.

Carpell enrolled at the University of Michigan and played for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1909 to 1912 under head coach Fielding H. Yost.

After graduating from Michigan, Carpell went into the real estate brokerage business in Detroit with an office in the Penobscot Building.

In 1913, he served as the head football coach at Albion College. He led the Albion Britons to a record of 2-3-2 in his one season as head coach.

Following the United States entry into World War I, Carpell was inducted into the U.S. Army on December 1, 1917. He was assigned to the Pilot Aviation Section and transferred to Berkeley, California, and then Dallas, Texas for training. Carpell attained the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, Aviation Section, Signal Corps, US Army, and received his commission as aviation combat pilot following his graduation from the School of Military Aeronautics at Columbus, Ohio. On January 1, 1918, he announced his engagement to Beatrice Merriam of Detroit. In October 1918, he died of a cause variously reported as heart failure or pneumonia following an outbreak of Spanish influenza while serving at Payne Field in West Point, Mississippi. He was one of three former Michigan Wolverines football players to be killed while serving in World War I. The other two were Curtis Redden, and Efton James. In November 1921, a bronze memorial tablet was unveiled at Michigan's football stadium to honor the four Michigan football players killed in the war.