Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Mar 25, 2015, 3:53 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1VfCn0EA_I

Frank Howard, 86, the Coach Of Top Clemson Football Teams
By FRANK LITSKY
Published: January 27, 1996

Frank Howard, the colorful coach who in 30 years took Clemson University from football obscurity to the ranks of the national elite, died yesterday at his home in Clemson, S.C. He was 86.

The sports information office at the university said the cause of death was congestive heart failure. Howard was hospitalized in November because of circulatory problems, last month after a fainting spell and this month after a minor heart attack.

After retiring from coaching in 1969, he was athletic director at Clemson until mandatory retirement in 1971. He then kept an office in the athletic department and, until three weeks ago, went there five days a week.

"I'm not sure what he did there," the sports information director, Tim Bourret, said. "Whatever a retired legend does."

Howard liked to say he retired for health reasons. "The alumni got sick of me," he would say.

He had a quick sense of humor. In the late 1950's, after a loss to Duke, he was asked to define the turning point. "It was three years ago," he said, "when I didn't recruit any half backs."

Frank James Howard was born on March 25, 1909, on a cotton farm in Barlow Bend, Ala., a town that he said was "three wagon greasin's from Mobile." He called himself the Bashful Baron of Barlow Bend.

In high school he played football, baseball and basketball and was president of the junior and senior classes. At the University of Alabama, where he was an honor student on an academic scholarship, he was a 185-pound guard on the football team from 1928 to 1930.

When he could not find work as an accountant, he became an assistant football coach at Clemson under Jess Neely. "I also coached track, was ticket manager, recruited players and had charge of football equipment," Howard said. "In my spare time I cut grass, lined tennis courts and operated the canteen while the regular man was out to lunch."

In 1940, when Neely became coach at Rice, the Clemson athletic council interviewed Howard as a potential successor. As the council discussed what to do, Howard listened from the back of the room. Finally, a council member said, "I nominate Frank Howard."

Long pause.

"I second the nomination," Howard said.

He got the job, lost his copy of the one-year contract and never signed another. From 1940 to 1969 his teams compiled a 165-118-12 record. They won two championships in the Southern Conference and later six in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Between 1949 and 1959 Clemson played in six bowl games.

Shortly after he retired as coach, Clemson named its stadium Frank Howard Field. In 1989, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

With all his success, his highest salary was $25,000 a year. The president of the university, Dr. R. F. Poole, feared that professors who earned less would be upset. "He called me up and said that he didn't want me to tell anybody what I made," Howard once said. "I said: 'Doc, you don't have to worry. I'm as ashamed as you are of what you pay me.' "

Surviving are his wife of 62 years, the former Anna Tribble; a son, Jimmy, of Clemson; a daughter, Alice McClure of Gastonia, N.C., and three grandchildren.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/27/sports/frank-howard-86-the-coach-of-top-clemson-football-teams.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2FwQUtKHoE

Coach Frank Howard was always good for a laugh
Last updated: September 03. 2013 12:22PM
Loran Smith Contributing columnist

For 30 years Frank Howard was Clemson’s head coach with a number of distinctions, one of which was his affection for the light side of life. Likely, there has never been a more colorful coach in college football. He was a balding man with an outpouring of homespun humor and a chaw of tobacco stuffed in his cheek. He was a man of ample girth and segued from a Hall of Fame coaching career into a popular Touchdown Club speaker across the South.

What I always appreciated about Coach Howard was that he could dish it out, but he could take it. All too often, the most accomplished practice jokers don’t laugh so loud when the joke is on them. When the old Touchdown Club of Atlanta was its prime years in the sixties and seventies, Howard and his close friend, Peahead Walker of Wake Forest, were always poking fun at one another. Verbally roughing up each other was a staple of the weekend. Ticket sales were limited for a noon luncheon on Saturday when Howard and Peahead roasted one another.

After a playing career at Alabama where he enrolled on an academic scholarship, he became an assistant to Jess Neely at Clemson. When Neely left for Rice in 1940, a professor at the meeting of the athletic council nominated Howard for the job. In the back of the room, Howard shouted, “I

second the nomination.” There was success after he became the head coach and Coach Howard was always good for a laugh.

In 1951, Clemson played Miami in the Orange Bowl, an underdog victor in which he was faced with a crisis when three of his star players missed curfew. “I waited on them past midnight,” Howard recalled, “and watch them slip through the lobby. I went to their rooms and demanded where they had been. They said the drawbridge got ‘em. I really gave ‘em hell and really had ‘em worried. Trouble was, I was worried too. What was I going to do?

He told the miscreants they were “too sorry” to play for him and told them he was sending them home by bus. He ordered an assistant standing by to go purchase the bus tickets. The players begged for forgiveness and asked if he would consider letting the team determine their status by vote. Howard told them he would think about it over night. When the players moved out of hearing, he turned to his assistant, “Get with our boys before breakfast and make #### sure they know how to vote.” Following the 15-14 victory over the Hurricanes, he referred to the incident and said. “That’s what you call discipline.”

A prospect, who came from a devout Baptist family, committed to South Carolina and Howard told his mother he wanted to come visit with

her and the boy anyway. He began talking about the boy’s decision, noting that South Carolina was a “fine” school and that he and the Gamecock coach were very good friends. “He’s very religious, you know,” Howard said. “He’s a devout Catholic. Never misses mass.” The boy’s Baptist mother perked up and said, “You say he is Catholic?” Howard responded, “Yes Mam, and a good one.” The boy changed his mind and signed with Clemson.

Once when he spoke in Dillon, South Carolina, he invited me to join him. Jimmy Carlen had just taken over as head coach in Columbia. Nothing Howard liked more than to poke fun at his mail rival. He explained to his eager audience that Carlen had been given the rights to his TV show. He took in all the sponsorship money and paid all the bills which meant that he would likely make a lot of money. “He’s got two big sponsors already,” Howard said, “Kentucky Friend Chicken and Schick razors. They gonna call his show the chicken Schick show.” It took a while to calm the audience down.

I always enjoyed the colorful coaches and when he and Peahead and Georgia’s Wallace Butts were holding court, you never wanted the evening to end. Saturday afternoon when I get to Death Valley, I will meander over to Howard’s Rock and pause in memory of the Baron from Barlow Bend

which refers to his hometown in South Alabama. Coaches are different today. Too serious, too uptight and no time to fraternize. Believe it or not, coaches in the old days used to go out to dinner after playing each other in the afternoon. Schedule dinner after the game today with some coaches, and there would be a free-for-all.

http://lagrangenews.com/news/opinion/2429489/Coach-Frank-Howard-was-always-good-for-a-laugh

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Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

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Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

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Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Thanks...thoroughly enjoyed the post.***

Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

Thanks!.

Re: Great post. Love the videos***

Re: Frank Howard woulda been 105 today. Happy BDay Coach.

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