Albert Berg (April 16, 1864 – March 5, 1945) was an American football player, coach, teacher, and an advocate, writer and editor on issues of concern to the deaf. Berg was rendered deaf as the result of a childhood bout of spinal meningitis. He played football in Washington, D.C. at the school that became known as Gallaudet University. Despite being deaf, he became the first football coach at Purdue University, coaching the team to an 0–1 record in the inaugural 1887 season. Berg also coached football at Franklin College and Butler University. He later served for more than 40 years as a teacher at the Indiana School for the Deaf. Early years Berg was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1864. His mother died when he was an infant, and he contracted spinal meningitis as a boy. The illness rendered Berg deaf. Berg was sent to the Indiana Institution for the Deaf in Indianapolis where he was a student for nine years. After leaving the Indiana Institution for the Deaf, Berg enrolled at the "Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb" (later renamed Gallaudet University), run by Edward Miner Gallaudet in Washington, D.C. He was a halfback and captain of the football team at Gallaudet. Berg later recalled:"In passing and kicking the ball, I was considered exceptionally strong." He received a bachelor's degree from Gallaudet in 1886. Several sources report that Berg was an alumnus of Princeton University. Other sources dispute Berg's having any connection with Princeton. Purdue football coach A group of students at Purdue University formed the school's first football team in 1887. Berg was hired as the coach. Despite being deaf, Berg was reportedly "the only man in the territory with any knowledge of the game." Berg was 23 years old when he became Purdue's football "coacher." He was paid $1 for each lesson he gave to the newly organized football team and had only one week to prepare the team for its first game. The 1887 Purdue team played its only game on October 29, 1887, against the Butler College team at Athletic Park in Indianapolis. Butler soundly defeated Berg's squad by a score of 48–6. After the loss to Butler, Purdue did not field a football team again until 1889. Newspaper columnist George Ade (for whom Ross–Ade Stadium is named) described the loss to Butler as "a low comedy reproduction of the Custer