AKA Glen Scobey Warner

Born: 5-Apr-1871
Birthplace: Springville, NY
Died: 7-Sep-1954
Location of death: Palo Alto, CA
Cause of death: Cancer - Throat
Remains: Buried, Maplewood Cemetery, Springville, NY

Gender: Male
Religion: Christian
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Football

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Coach and kids' football namesake

Glen Scobey Warner got the nickname "Pop" while playing guard for Cornell, where he was a few years older than most of his teammates. He graduated with a law degree, but made his fame as a college football coach, and brought many innovations to the game. After the 1905 season, when 15 collegiate players were killed playing the game, Warner became a leading advocate of new safety rules and equipment. His other innovations included the body block, screen play, single- and double-wing formations, spiral forward pass, and the now-familiar crouching three-point stance. In 1932, he received US patent #1887473 for improvements to the shoulder pad. At the Carlisle Indian School -- a boarding school where native Americans were denied their culture and forced to act "white" -- he coached Jim Thorpe, and at Stanford he coached Ernie Nevers. In his 44-year career as a collegiate coach, Warner's teams had 319 wins, 106 losses, and 32 ties.

While coaching at Temple University in 1932, Warner was approached by Joe Tomlin, a local football enthusiast who had started a boy's football league three years earlier. Tomlin secured Warner's permission to rechristen his football league for the famous coach, and what had been called the Junior Football Conference became the Pop Warner Conference. Now known as Pop Warner Little Scholars, the program has about 300,000 kids participating annually -- boys playing football, girls as cheerleaders -- on some 5,000 teams in eight age and weight classifications.

An amateur carpenter, Warner made his own golf clubs. He played himself in Knute Rockne All American with Ronald Reagan, and he was portrayed by Charles Bickford in Jim Thorpe -- All-American.

Father: William Henry Warner
Mother: Adeline Scobey
Wife: Tibb Loraine Smith (m. 1889)

    High School: Griffith Institute, Springville, NY
    Law School: LLB, Cornell Law School (1894)
    Coach: Head Coach, University of Georgia (1895-96)
    Coach: Head Coach, Cornell University (1897-98)
    Coach: Head Coach, Carlisle Indian School (1899-1903)
    Coach: Head Coach, Cornell University (1904-06)
    Coach: Head Coach, Carlisle Indian School (1907-14)
    Coach: Head Coach, University of Pittsburgh (1915-23)
    Coach: Head Coach, Stanford University (1924-32)
    Coach: Head Coach, Temple University (1933-38)
    Coach: Head Coach, San Jose State University (1939-40)

    College Football Hall of Fame 1951

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Knute Rockne All American (4-Oct-1940) · Himself

Author of books:
A Course in Football for Players and Coaches (1908)
Football for Coaches and Players (1927)
"Pop" Warner's Book for Boys (1934, with Frank J. Taylor)
Pop Warner, Football's Greatest Teacher: The Epic Autobiography of Major College Football's Winningest Coach (1993, autobiography; posthumous, with Mike Bynum)

Appears on postage stamps:
USA, Scott #3149 (32¢, depicting Warner with a young football player, issued 8-Aug-1997)

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