The University of New Hampshire named Cowell Stadium for him.
Called a charismatic Kansan, he arrived in Durham and became the University's first football coach in 1915. "Chin set, head lowered, mouth closed, eyes intense, Cowell always seemed to be wearing his game face... In 1917, he led the college to its first winning season—23 years in the waiting." [From "Beware the Underdogs", a 2009 article at UNHmagazine.unh.edu]
Known as Butch to his fans, as Harold to his own family, William H. Cowell oversaw the UNH basketball and football teams as they changed from Aggies to Wildcats. His draft registration for WW I said he was a professor of physical education in Durham, a single man, of medium height, "stout" (thickly muscular?) with blue eyes, light brown hair, limbs intact, not balding, single, and not seeking a war exemption.
His much younger brother Roland had the same physique in his WW I draft registration, made instead from Michigan, so it was natural that he played college varsity football and was a college coach also, before turning to sales. Both would serve in the military. The Great War postponed Roland's graduation until 1922. Neither said in their draft registration that their widowed mother financially depended on him, so she must have had her own income.
Their mother was with them both in their 1900 Census in Clyde, Kansas, a young widow with a boarder and two schoolboy sons, then in Lawrence, Kansas, a college town, for the 1910 Census, where, still called Howard, he worked on his degree. A Physical Director named Root, who worked at the University of Kansas, lived next-door. Did Howard learn how to coach by observing him? Or, was it a natural gift? Their mother stayed in Kansas after the young men left, but would join Howard again, up in NH, by the 1920 Census. Brother Roland remained mainly in the Midwest.
At some point, Harold dropped one or two years from his age. The 22 or 23 initially written as his age on their 1910 Census form was clearly crossed out by writing 21 over it. We can picture his mother telling the census-taker his real age, then Harold sitting at the kitchen table with them and asking for the correction. [Handwritten record showing cross-out is here: FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYB4-K98]
The 1887 birth date on his stone, however, matches that on his Massachusetts birth record and given by his mother. Perhaps, since football was a young man's sport, not yet 25 in 1910, he already feared being seen as too old?
Like his father and brother, he would not live to see 60. His sports biographies gave his death place as Durham.
In their mother's 1910 Census, she said she had been the mother of four children, with only two still living. All four were named on the same stone, buried back in his parents' home state of Maine.
Bio given by JBrown
Called a charismatic Kansan, he arrived in Durham and became the University's first football coach in 1915. "Chin set, head lowered, mouth closed, eyes intense, Cowell always seemed to be wearing his game face... In 1917, he led the college to its first winning season—23 years in the waiting." [From "Beware the Underdogs", a 2009 article at UNHmagazine.unh.edu]
Known as Butch to his fans, as Harold to his own family, William H. Cowell oversaw the UNH basketball and football teams as they changed from Aggies to Wildcats. His draft registration for WW I said he was a professor of physical education in Durham, a single man, of medium height, "stout" (thickly muscular?) with blue eyes, light brown hair, limbs intact, not balding, single, and not seeking a war exemption.
His much younger brother Roland had the same physique in his WW I draft registration, made instead from Michigan, so it was natural that he played college varsity football and was a college coach also, before turning to sales. Both would serve in the military. The Great War postponed Roland's graduation until 1922. Neither said in their draft registration that their widowed mother financially depended on him, so she must have had her own income.
Their mother was with them both in their 1900 Census in Clyde, Kansas, a young widow with a boarder and two schoolboy sons, then in Lawrence, Kansas, a college town, for the 1910 Census, where, still called Howard, he worked on his degree. A Physical Director named Root, who worked at the University of Kansas, lived next-door. Did Howard learn how to coach by observing him? Or, was it a natural gift? Their mother stayed in Kansas after the young men left, but would join Howard again, up in NH, by the 1920 Census. Brother Roland remained mainly in the Midwest.
At some point, Harold dropped one or two years from his age. The 22 or 23 initially written as his age on their 1910 Census form was clearly crossed out by writing 21 over it. We can picture his mother telling the census-taker his real age, then Harold sitting at the kitchen table with them and asking for the correction. [Handwritten record showing cross-out is here: FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYB4-K98]
The 1887 birth date on his stone, however, matches that on his Massachusetts birth record and given by his mother. Perhaps, since football was a young man's sport, not yet 25 in 1910, he already feared being seen as too old?
Like his father and brother, he would not live to see 60. His sports biographies gave his death place as Durham.
In their mother's 1910 Census, she said she had been the mother of four children, with only two still living. All four were named on the same stone, buried back in his parents' home state of Maine.
Bio given by JBrown
The University of New Hampshire named Cowell Stadium for him.
Called a charismatic Kansan, he arrived in Durham and became the University's first football coach in 1915. "Chin set, head lowered, mouth closed, eyes intense, Cowell always seemed to be wearing his game face... In 1917, he led the college to its first winning season—23 years in the waiting." [From "Beware the Underdogs", a 2009 article at UNHmagazine.unh.edu]
Known as Butch to his fans, as Harold to his own family, William H. Cowell oversaw the UNH basketball and football teams as they changed from Aggies to Wildcats. His draft registration for WW I said he was a professor of physical education in Durham, a single man, of medium height, "stout" (thickly muscular?) with blue eyes, light brown hair, limbs intact, not balding, single, and not seeking a war exemption.
His much younger brother Roland had the same physique in his WW I draft registration, made instead from Michigan, so it was natural that he played college varsity football and was a college coach also, before turning to sales. Both would serve in the military. The Great War postponed Roland's graduation until 1922. Neither said in their draft registration that their widowed mother financially depended on him, so she must have had her own income.
Their mother was with them both in their 1900 Census in Clyde, Kansas, a young widow with a boarder and two schoolboy sons, then in Lawrence, Kansas, a college town, for the 1910 Census, where, still called Howard, he worked on his degree. A Physical Director named Root, who worked at the University of Kansas, lived next-door. Did Howard learn how to coach by observing him? Or, was it a natural gift? Their mother stayed in Kansas after the young men left, but would join Howard again, up in NH, by the 1920 Census. Brother Roland remained mainly in the Midwest.
At some point, Harold dropped one or two years from his age. The 22 or 23 initially written as his age on their 1910 Census form was clearly crossed out by writing 21 over it. We can picture his mother telling the census-taker his real age, then Harold sitting at the kitchen table with them and asking for the correction. [Handwritten record showing cross-out is here: FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYB4-K98]
The 1887 birth date on his stone, however, matches that on his Massachusetts birth record and given by his mother. Perhaps, since football was a young man's sport, not yet 25 in 1910, he already feared being seen as too old?
Like his father and brother, he would not live to see 60. His sports biographies gave his death place as Durham.
In their mother's 1910 Census, she said she had been the mother of four children, with only two still living. All four were named on the same stone, buried back in his parents' home state of Maine.
Bio given by JBrown
Called a charismatic Kansan, he arrived in Durham and became the University's first football coach in 1915. "Chin set, head lowered, mouth closed, eyes intense, Cowell always seemed to be wearing his game face... In 1917, he led the college to its first winning season—23 years in the waiting." [From "Beware the Underdogs", a 2009 article at UNHmagazine.unh.edu]
Known as Butch to his fans, as Harold to his own family, William H. Cowell oversaw the UNH basketball and football teams as they changed from Aggies to Wildcats. His draft registration for WW I said he was a professor of physical education in Durham, a single man, of medium height, "stout" (thickly muscular?) with blue eyes, light brown hair, limbs intact, not balding, single, and not seeking a war exemption.
His much younger brother Roland had the same physique in his WW I draft registration, made instead from Michigan, so it was natural that he played college varsity football and was a college coach also, before turning to sales. Both would serve in the military. The Great War postponed Roland's graduation until 1922. Neither said in their draft registration that their widowed mother financially depended on him, so she must have had her own income.
Their mother was with them both in their 1900 Census in Clyde, Kansas, a young widow with a boarder and two schoolboy sons, then in Lawrence, Kansas, a college town, for the 1910 Census, where, still called Howard, he worked on his degree. A Physical Director named Root, who worked at the University of Kansas, lived next-door. Did Howard learn how to coach by observing him? Or, was it a natural gift? Their mother stayed in Kansas after the young men left, but would join Howard again, up in NH, by the 1920 Census. Brother Roland remained mainly in the Midwest.
At some point, Harold dropped one or two years from his age. The 22 or 23 initially written as his age on their 1910 Census form was clearly crossed out by writing 21 over it. We can picture his mother telling the census-taker his real age, then Harold sitting at the kitchen table with them and asking for the correction. [Handwritten record showing cross-out is here: FamilySearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GYB4-K98]
The 1887 birth date on his stone, however, matches that on his Massachusetts birth record and given by his mother. Perhaps, since football was a young man's sport, not yet 25 in 1910, he already feared being seen as too old?
Like his father and brother, he would not live to see 60. His sports biographies gave his death place as Durham.
In their mother's 1910 Census, she said she had been the mother of four children, with only two still living. All four were named on the same stone, buried back in his parents' home state of Maine.
Bio given by JBrown
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Wm. Cowell
July 21, 1887- Aug. 28, 1940
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