Clemson Tigers Frank Howard Interview (September 28, 1966)

Frank J. Howard (March 25, 1909 – January 26, 1996) was an American college football player and coach. He played college football for Alabama. After a career-ending injury, Howard joined the staff at Clemson College and became head coach in 1940. Howard coached the Clemson Tigers for 30 years, amassing the 15th most wins of any college football coach. He led Clemson to ten bowl games, an undefeated season in 1948, and several top-20 rankings during his tenure as head coach. During his stay at Clemson, Howard also oversaw the athletic department, ticket sales, and was an assistant coach for the baseball team. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the South Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame[1] and the Clemson Ring of Honor. The playing surface at Clemson’s Memorial Stadium is named after him.

Howard was born at Barlow Bend, Alabama (“three wagon greasin’s from Mobile”). He spent his early days on the farm playing mostly cow pasture baseball because there were not enough boys around the community for a football team. Howard said he left Barlow Bend walking barefoot on a barbed wire fence with a wildcat under each arm.

He graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile where he played football, baseball and basketball and served as president of both the junior and senior classes.

After finishing at Murphy, Howard entered the University of Alabama on an academic scholarship provided by the Birmingham News in the fall of 1927, and the 185-pounder played reserve guard his sophomore year. During his junior year, he started every game but two, as an ankle injury sidelined him for the two games he missed. Again his senior year he was a regular.

Howard was president of the freshman class at Alabama, was member of Blue Key and president of the “A” Club.

Coaching career[edit source]
Howard stepped onto the rolling hills of Clemson in 1931 fresh from the varsity football ranks at Alabama where he was a first stringer on Wallace Wade’s 1930 team that drubbed Washington State 24–0 in the 1931 Rose Bowl. Howard was known as the “Little Giant’ of the Tide’s “Herd of Red Elephants.”

The veteran came to his first coaching post under Jess Neely as a line tutor. “At least that was my title,” Howard recalls. “Actually, I also coached track, was ticket manager, recruited players and had charge of football equipment. In my spare time I cut grass, lined tennis courts and operated the canteen while the regular man was out to lunch:’ Howard was not only track coach from 1931 to 1939, but served as baseball coach in 1943 and his 12–3 record that year is still among the best percentages for a season in Clemson history.

Howard held the line coaching post until Neely went to Rice University as head coach in 1940. When the Clemson Athletic Council met to name a successor to Neely, Prof. Sam Rhodes, a council member, nominated Howard to be the new head coach. Howard, standing in the back of the room listening to the discussion, said; “I second the nomination.” He got the job and never left. When he retired as head coach following the 1969 season, he was the nation’s dean of coaches, having been a head football coach at a major institution longer than anyone else in the United States. When he retired, he was one of five active coaches with 150 or more victories.

While line coach in 1939, the Tigers’ record (8–1) was good enough to merit a trip to Dallas where Clemson met undefeated Boston College under Frank Leahy in the 1940 Cotton Bowl Classic. The 1948 mark of 10–0 carried Clemson to the 1949 Gator Bowl and two years later, a 9–0–1 record sent the Tigers to the 1951 Orange Bowl. The Country Gentlemen were champions on their first three bowl ventures. Boston College fell 6–3, Missouri was nipped in the Gator, 24–23 (Howard said this is the best football game he ever witnessed), and Miami felt the Tiger claws, 15–14. The total point spread in these three bowl wins was five points.

The Gator Bowl beckoned the Tigers again in January 1952, and by being conference champions in 1956, Clemson played in the 1957 Orange Bowl. Miami downed Clemson 14–0 in the second Gator Bowl trip, and Colorado led Clemson 20–0, then trailed 21–20 before finally defeating the Tigers 27–21 in the second Orange Bowl. The Tigers then played in the 1959 Sugar Bowl and held the national champion LSU Tigers to a standstill before losing 7–0 on a halfback option touchdown pass by Billy Cannon, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy the next season.

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