Robert Kent Gooch

Robert Kent Gooch (September 26, 1893 – May 22, 1982) was an American football player and political scientist. Gooch was a quarterback for the Virginia Cavaliers football team of the University of Virginia. He was named a Rhodes Scholar, but the First World War interrupted his studies. During the war, Gooch served with the American Ambulance Corps with the French forces on the Somme front, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He is the namesake of the Robert Kent Gooch Scholarship, for second and third-year college students who have a record of outstanding academic achievement and a record of outstanding service to others. For many years Gooch was a political science professor at UVA, writing several books. He is buried at the University of Virginia Cemetery. A named professorship of political science, the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics, was established in his honor at the university, with Larry Sabato the incumbent as of 2018.