54 Facts About Pop Warner

Glenn Scobey Warner, most commonly known as Pop Warner, was an American college football coach at various institutions who is responsible for several key aspects of the modern game.

Pop Warner was inducted as a coach into the College Football Hall of Fame as part of its inaugural class in 1951.

Pop Warner contributed to a junior football program which became known as Pop Warner Little Scholars, a popular youth American football organization.

Pop Warner coached teams to four national championships: Pittsburgh in 1915,1916, and 1918 and Stanford in 1926.

Pop Warner was born April 5,1871, on a farm in Springville, New York.

Pop Warner was the son of William Warner, a cavalry officer in the American Civil War, and schoolteacher Adaline Scobey.

Plump as a child, Pop Warner was sometimes known as "Butter".

Pop Warner began playing baseball at an early age, and was a skilled pitcher.

In 1889 at 19 years old, Pop Warner graduated from Springville-Griffith Institute and joined his family in moving down to Wichita Falls, Texas, to work on their new purchased cattle and wheat ranch totaling over hundreds of acres.

Pop Warner was already interested in art as a childlearning how to paint watercolor landscapes, and as a tinsmith he learned how to use tools to make things like cups, teapots, baking pans, and lanterns.

In 1892, Pop Warner returned to Springville and began to use his cowboy experience to gamble on horse races.

Pop Warner graduated from Cornell in 1894 and began working as an attorney in Buffalo, New York.

On Pop Warner's train ride to Ithaca, he met Carl Johanson, then Cornell's football coach, who was impressed by Pop Warner's weight.

Pop Warner participated in track and field and was the school's heavyweight boxing champion for two years.

However, as Pop Warner was a guard and not a runner, he was incorrectly holding the ball, and fumbled upon being tackled.

Pop Warner decided to enter the game, filling in at the guard position.

Pop Warner was rehired at a salary of $40 per week, and the next season Georgia had one of the school's first great teams.

In 1904, after five years at Carlisle, Pop Warner returned to Cornell but his 1904 team featuring Clemson transfer James Lynah was little improved over the previous year.

Pop Warner knew little about the sport; to prepare as coach he bought every book available and consulted Jack Moakley and Mike Murphy, two of the era's leading head coaches.

In 1902, Pop Warner played one professional football game for the Syracuse Athletic Club during the first World Series of Football at Madison Square Garden.

Pop Warner considered the 1907 Carlisle team "about as perfect a football machine as I ever sent on the field".

Pop Warner played him as a substitute, encouraging him to put his time into track and field.

Pop Warner considered the 1912 team brilliant and adaptive, and experimented with new plays and formations.

Pop Warner had both halfbacks close to the line and flanking the defensive tackles.

Pop Warner's salary increased to $4,500 per season.

When Pop Warner arrived at the University of Pittsburgh in 1915, the 128-year-old school was on a new campus with 3,900 students.

Pop Warner inherited a team in good shape, full of future All-Americans, and coached the Pittsburgh Panthers to their first undefeated season.

Pop Warner coached his Pitt teams to 29 straight victories, and is credited with three national championships.

Pop Warner considered the team an improvement because its defense was more dominant than the previous year's.

The Panthers were the consensus national champions, and Pop Warner became recognized as one of football's greatest coaches.

Moon Ducote kicked the 41-yard, game-winning field goal for the Naval Reserve, and Pop Warner called him "the greatest football player I ever saw".

Early in 1922, Pop Warner signed a contract with Stanford University in which he would begin coaching in 1924.

Health concerns, a significant pay raise and the rising status of Pacific Coast football made Pop Warner make the big change.

In 1924, Pop Warner began his nine-year tenure at Stanford University.

Pop Warner inherited a notable squad from the previous year, including Ernie Nevers and All-American ends Ted Shipkey and Jim Lawson.

Pop Warner seized the opportunity to combine passing with the trick plays for which he was known, and Stanford made a comeback.

Pop Warner's team was invited to the Rose Bowl to play Alabama.

Stanford put the game on ice in the fourth period when Pop Warner introduced the bootlegger play, which was to be widely copied and still is in use.

In recognition of his Rose Bowl accomplishments, Pop Warner was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 2018.

Against Stanford's main rival, California, Pop Warner won five games, tied three and lost one.

Pop Warner left Stanford for Temple University in Philadelphia, his final head-coaching job, after the 1932 season.

Pop Warner was paid $75,000 for five years, one of the largest salaries ever offered a coach at the time.

In later years Pop Warner said he regretted his decision to leave Stanford for Temple.

Pop Warner left because of concern about the school's changing funding priorities.

Pop Warner soon realized that he had made the wrong decision; due to the economic effects of the Great Depression, the number of applicants to Stanford decreased significantly and athletes were again admitted.

Pop Warner married the former Tibb Lorraine Smith in Springville on June 1,1899.

Pop Warner smoked Turkish Trophy cigarettes and drank alcohol; his trainers were instructed to supply him with "cough medicine".

Pop Warner died on September 7,1954, at age 83 in Palo Alto from throat cancer.

Pop Warner's name is widely known for the Pop Warner Little Scholars program, which began in 1929 as the Junior Football Conference in Philadelphia to keep children busy and out of trouble.

Pop Warner invented the single and double wing formations, the three-point stance, and the modern body block technique.

Pop Warner introduced several plays, such as the trap run, the bootleg, the naked reverse, and the screen pass.

Pop Warner was among the first to use the huddle, to number plays, and to teach the spiral pass and spiral punt.

Pop Warner improved shoulder and thigh pads; and was the first to utilize adjustable fiber, rather than cotton.

Pop Warner had his own helmet color-coding: red for backs and white for ends.