Frank Howard Still Casts Shadow At Clemson
If you were building a Mount Rushmore of football coaches at Clemson, Dabo Swinney and Danny Ford would most certainly be posing for portraits.
But the first face that would don that mountain would be Frank Howard. Even while Swinney and Ford have led the Tigers to national championships, the field on which they coach is named for Howard along with the emblem of football tradition, "Howard's Rock."
Howard started his Clemson career in 1931 as a line coach under Jess Neely. Neely left for Rice in 1940, and the story goes that Clemson Athletic Council Sam Rhodes nominated Howard to be the next coach. Howard, who was standing in the back of the room said "I second the nomination," and the Tigers had their new head coach.
In his first season, Howard won the Southern Conference, the first of two titles, before winning six more Atlantic Coast Conference championships during his 30 year career.
In a 1974 interview with SCETV, Howard said he was fortunate to have had some fine football players at Clemson.
"I ran across a lot of fine athletes and football players, but the thing that always gave me the most satisfaction in my players was not whether they played pro football," Howard said. "I'd love to see them be doctors and bankers. I got a lot of boys that's been successful and I'm mighty proud of every one of them."
Howard and Tigers gained national exposure during the 1948 season. Clemson finished the season 11-0 including a win over Missouri in the 1949 Gator Bowl. Despite the undefeated record, Clemson finished 11th in the final Associated Press poll that season.
Two years later, Howard led the Tigers to another undefeated season and win over Miami in the Orange Bowl. Clemson finished 10th in the AP poll that year.
A move to the ACC in 1953 marked a resurgence of the Tigers back to the national spotlight. Howard, a devotee to the single-wing style of offense, made the transition to the T-formation. Former quarterback Charlie Bussey talked about the change in the book If These Walls Could Talk.
"When we switched, it was a gutsy move," Bussey said. "I learned a lot from him, we had a father-son relationship, even until his death."
In Bussey's senior season, Clemson won its first ACC championship under Howard and earned an invitation to the Orange Bowl. Clemson would play in the Sugar Bowl after the 1958 season and the Bluebonnet bowl at the end of the 1959 season.
Howard would win three-straight ACC titles from 1965-67 before announcing his retirement after the 1969 season. He finished his career with 165 wins, the most in Clemson history. Howard stayed on as athletic director through 1971 and retired from the Clemson payroll in 1974.
Howard was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1989, and passed away in 1996 at the age of 86.
