WARNER, Glenn Scobey ("Pop")

(b. 5 April 1871 in Springville, New York; d. 7 September 1954 in Palo Alto, California), premier American football coach and innovator who coached for forty-nine years, and who founded the Pop Warner Youth Football League.

Warner was the son of William Henry Warner, an independent businessman in sales, and Adeline Scobey Warner, a homemaker. Warner attended Springville's Griffith Institute, from which he graduated in 1889. Subsequently he attended Cornell University, graduating with an LL.B. in 1894. Warner was a solid guard on his college football team, the Rams (1892–1894), was team captain, and won the nickname "Pop" because he was a bit older than most of his teammates. He also ran track and became a heavyweight college boxing champion.

Warner had thoughts of a law career and was admitted to the New York bar in 1894, but he decided that he loved the football field more than a courtroom. After turning his back on the legal profession, Warner spent a year as football coach at Iowa State Agricultural College, and from 1895 to 1896 he was head coach at the University of Georgia. Originally hired for $340 on a ten-week contract, Warner was dismayed when he arrived at his new university to find that it had no athletic facilities. Out of the student body of 248, only thirteen men came out for football. His first team had a so-so 3–4 record, but his 1896 squad had an unbeaten, untied season, the first in the university's history. He accomplished the change by using iron discipline and by stressing the fundamentals of football. Warner left the University of Georgia to coach at Cornell during the seasons of 1897 and 1898 before he found the position that made him famous, the coaching job at the Carlisle Indian School (at first known as the Indian Industrial School) in Pennsylvania. He was there from 1899 to 1903 and again from 1907 to 1914 (coaching at Cornell again from 1904 to 1906). Warner married Tibb Loraine Smith in 1889. The couple had no children.

In his later stint at Carlisle, Warner turned Jim Thorpe into what some people called the "World's Greatest Athlete," coaching him in football, baseball, track, and several other college sports. In football, with Thorpe running wild, Warner and his Carlisle Indians won the national championship in the 1911–1912 season. Thorpe became a sensation at the 1912 Olympic Games, then went on to star in Major League Baseball and professional football. Meanwhile, from 1907 to 1914 Warner won seventy games in seven years, achieving national recognition.

Warner coached the University of Pittsburgh Panthers from 1915 to 1923. Three of his squads were undefeated from 1915 to 1917, capturing thirty-three straight victories. Two of those teams tied for the national championship, and one won it outright. Next, at Stanford from 1924 to 1932, Warner led the Cardinal to three Rose Bowls, where they won all three games. He went on to coach the Temple University Owls from 1933 to 1938. He coached the Owls to thirty-one victories. His 1934 team had the distinction of playing in the first Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Warner finished his career in 1939 as an advisory coach for the San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) Spartans in California. When he retired, Warner had 319 career wins, which for a time was the all-time record in Division I-A football. He racked up 114 of those wins while coaching Native Americans at Carlisle. Warner also produced forty-seven All-Americans. His record was eventually broken by the legendary University of Alabama coach Bear Bryant.

In addition to his coaching career, Warner also became an author. In 1908 he wrote Football for Players and Coaches ; the second edition was published in 1912. Fifteen years later he produced an updated version called Football for Coaches and Players. Warner also wrote Pop Warner ' s Book for Boys (1934), and updated it in 1942.

Warner is probably best known by most Americans for the "Pop Warner Youth Football League" he founded in 1929. In these "camps" for children from five to fifteen years of age, gender equality prevailed: boys and girls could all play football and/or become cheerleaders. Classroom instruction was mandatory, and the youngsters had to excel there before they took the field. Every year there was a "Pop Warner Little Scholars" program, with the best students being named as academic "All-Americans." Although the youth football league was having financial problems by 2001, thirty-nine American states and Mexico and Japan still had Pop Warner Football.

Throughout his career, Warner was known as an innovator. He introduced the practice of numbered plays and dummy scrimmaging, in which players practiced blocking against a dummy rather than another player. Using dummies allowed coaches to better teach the fundamentals of blocking. Warner also developed the single-wing formation, which some still consider the most powerful formation for running the football. He then developed the double-wing formation, after other teams imitated the single-wing. In the double-wing, both the left half and the right half lined up just to the outside of the ends on their respective sides of the line. It was a good passing formation similar to the one-back offense many teams use today. Warner also introduced the spiral punt, the screen pass, the three-point stance, and the naked reverse, wherein blockers ran in one direction while the ball carrier ran in the opposite direction. Such a reverse often fooled the other team. Further, he inaugurated the use of numbered jerseys so individual players could be recognized, and the use of shoulder and thigh pads for players' safety. Warner is revered as a ground-breaker as well as one of the most successful coaches in the history of football.

After many years of enjoyable retirement, Warner died in Palo Alto, California, after a long bout with throat cancer.

To best understand Warner as a football coach, to understand all his innovations, and to understand how he felt about young people, one should read his books: Football for Players and Coaches (1908); Football for Coaches and Players (1927); and Pop Warner ' s Book for Boys (revised ed., 1942). Mike Bynum has written a recent biography of Warner, Pop Warner: Football ' s Greatest Teacher (1993). Warner is mentioned in Robert M. Ours, College Football Encyclopedia: The Authoritative Guide to 124 Years of College Football (1994). See also Scott Linnett, "Even in Death, 'Pop' Warner Tough to Beat," San Diego Union-Tribune (17 Nov. 1993). An obituary is in the New York Times (8 Sept. 1954).

James M. Smallwoodm