Paul Raymond "Shorty" Des Jardien (August 24, 1893 – March 7, 1956) was an American football, baseball and basketball player. He played for the University of Chicago where he was selected as the first-team All-American center in both 1913 and 1914 and also pitched a no-hitter for the baseball team. He later played professional baseball for the Cleveland Indians and professional football for the Cleveland Indians (1916), Hammond Pros (1919), Chicago Tigers (1920) and Minneapolis Marines (1922). He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955.

Des Jardien was born in Coffeyville, Kansas and moved to Chicago when he was a child. He attended Chicago's Wendell Phillips Academy High School before enrolling at the University of Chicago, where he played on the Chicago Maroons' football, baseball, basketball, and track and field teams. He earned 12 varsity letters, played on Western Conference championship teams in both football and baseball, and became known as one of the best all-around athletes ever produced by the University of Chicago. While attending the University of Chicago, Des Jardien was 6 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 190 pounds; his teammates called him "Shorty."

In baseball, Des Jardien was a pitcher, but also played at first and third base. The University of Chicago Magazine wrote: "Des Jardien at third base fields well, and adds strength by his spirit. All in all, the tall young man is one of the most excellent athletes Chicago has had in years." In May 1914, he threw a no-hitters and struck out 14 Iowa Hawkeyes batters in a game.

Des Jardien gained his greatest fame playing at the center position for Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons football teams from 1912 to 1914. Des Jardien played at the center position on both offense and defense, was considered "the mainstay of his team on defense," and was also known for his ability as a long punter. During Des Jardien's three years as Chicago's center, the Maroons compiled a record of 17–3–1, including an undefeated 7–0 record and Western Conference championship in 1913.

After his sophomore year in 1912, Des Jardien was selected as a first-team All-Western player. Stagg praised Des Jardien as a "spectacular" player and "as flashy a center as I have seen in many years." In naming Des Jardien to his All-Western team in 1912, E.C. Patterson in Collier's wrote: "Des Jardien is not great of bulk, at least not horizontally. He is tall and rangy and remarkably active. His usefulness is accentuated when it is seen that some of Coach Stagg's forward pass tricks center around him."

In his junior and senior years of 1913 and 1914, Des Jardien was selected as a first-team All-American. He was also chosen by his teammates as the captain of the 1914 football team. In 1914, Walter Camp wrote about Des Jardien, calling him "[...] the best center in the country — steady, reliable, absolutely dependable for his share of line work on attack, and a power on defense."

The New York Times reported in January 1915 that Des Jardien had agreed to play professional baseball for the Chicago Cubs upon graduating from the University of Chicago in June 1915. According to the report, Des Jardien declined to sign a contract with the Cubs to avoid endangering his amateur status. The report described Des Jardien as one of the best pitchers in the Western Conference, a right-hander with a good curve ball.

Instead of playing Major League Baseball in the summer of 1915, Des Jardien traveled to Asia with the University of Chicago baseball team. The team played 15 games, winning 12, while traveling to the West Coast of the United States. It sailed from San Francisco on the SS Mongolia and arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii in early September 1915, spending ten days there and playing games against teams from the U.S. Army and the St. Louis Athletic Club and teams made up of Chinese and Portuguese players. The team next sailed to Japan. On September 24, 1915, the Chicago squad played a double header in front of a crowd of 20,000 people in Tokyo. Des Jardien pitched both games, defeating Waseda 5–3 and the Keio University 4–1. Des Jardien hit a home run and struck out 11 batters in the game against the Keio. Des Jardien served as an assistant coach for the University of Chicago's basketball, baseball and track teams upon returning from Japan in January 1916.