October 21, 2008
by Bill Tanton, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
They don't make `em like Hezzy Howard any more. They don't have to. There's no position anywhere these days with the job description Hezzy had at the University of Maryland in the 1960s:
Distinguished scholar with the requisite Ph.D. Full professor and head of the English department. Authority on the 18th century English poet and artist William Blake. Author of books on Blake. In the afternoons, head coach of the Maryland lacrosse team that won the national championship in 1967.
No one was surprised when Hezzy -- whose real name was John -- became the head coach at UM. At Washington College in the 1950s, Hezzy was a first-team All-America attackman (and the faceoff man) at a time when the Chestertown, Md., school of 1,000 students played against the big boys. He led the nation in assists and won the Turnbull Award as the best attackman in the country in 1956. In the USILA North-South All-Star Game, he led the South to a 20-10 victory with five goals and six assists. He was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1978.
He also was a brilliant student.
I knew him slightly then and I knew he was a brain, but only recently did I learn from reading the proclamation when he entered the Washington College Hall of Fame in 1978 that he was such an authority on Blake and wrote "several books" on him.
Not to demean the coaches I know among the top lacrosse teams in the country today, but I can't imagine any of them -- with the possible exception of Roy Simmons Jr. at Syracuse -- reading a single poem by a romantic English poet of the late 1700s, much less writing several books and articles on him.
Howard had to be a pretty good coach, too. His `67 Maryland team was the tri-national champion with Navy and Johns Hopkins. This was before the NCAA introduced a postseason championship tournament.
Remember, Navy dominated in the `60s, winning eight straight national championships. When Professor Howard's Terps beat the Mids, 5-3, in 1968, it was the first time Maryland had beaten Navy in eight years. Hezzy was Maryland's head coach from 1966 through 1969 and had an impressive record of 37-7-1. After `69, he was immersed in academia, where he also was a star.
At that time at Maryland it seemed perfectly natural that a professor of English would be the head coach of the lacrosse team. The head coach from 1928-1963 had been the fatherly Dr. Jack Faber, who was also a professor as well as head of the department of microbiology. Faber's sidekick all those years was Al Heagy, a chemist. Faber and Heagy are in the National Hall of Fame.
"Hezzy was very easy to play for," recalls Alan Lowe, now retired and living in Hudson, Fla. "He let you do as much as you could. He let us play. His assistant was Rennie Smith, who was an insurance salesman. So the head coach and his assistant were part-time coaches and we were national champions.
"Hezzy was a bit of a free spirit, but he was very likeable. He was a handsome guy. We used to like to go to his office because the girls were always coming in and cooing, `Hi, Hezzy.'"
"Hezzy," says Bill Sbarra, "was a pleasure to play for and a great guy to know. He knew the game. He was the first coach I ever saw who inverted his attackmen and midfielders. Hezzy was always level-headed and cool, even if we were way behind in a game. The day we upset Hopkins, we knew everything Hopkins was going to do. Hezzy's scouting report was brilliant."
Howard lived in retirement in Greencastle, Ind., where his wife was a teacher at DePauw University. Last year Hezzy came down with pneumonia and, after a month-long illness, he died on July 19. He was 73.
A few months before he passed away, I learned that he did not succeed at everything he touched.
"I tried to start lacrosse at DePauw," he told me on the phone. "We held a few practices in the fall. The kids had a problem -- they would not believe you could catch and throw a lacrosse ball while you were running. They thought you had to be standing still.
"After Christmas, nobody came back. Either I'm a lousy teacher or kids in Indiana just didn't like lacrosse."
Contact Bill Tanton at pubguys@uslacrosse.org.
Oct. 21, 2008
This "His Space" column appears in the October 2008 edition of Lacrosse Magazine, a US Lacrosse publication available exclusively to its members. Join today to start your monthly subscription to LM.
by Bill Tanton, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
They don't make `em like Hezzy Howard any more. They don't have to. There's no position anywhere these days with the job description Hezzy had at the University of Maryland in the 1960s:
Distinguished scholar with the requisite Ph.D. Full professor and head of the English department. Authority on the 18th century English poet and artist William Blake. Author of books on Blake. In the afternoons, head coach of the Maryland lacrosse team that won the national championship in 1967.
No one was surprised when Hezzy -- whose real name was John -- became the head coach at UM. At Washington College in the 1950s, Hezzy was a first-team All-America attackman (and the faceoff man) at a time when the Chestertown, Md., school of 1,000 students played against the big boys. He led the nation in assists and won the Turnbull Award as the best attackman in the country in 1956. In the USILA North-South All-Star Game, he led the South to a 20-10 victory with five goals and six assists. He was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1978.
He also was a brilliant student.
I knew him slightly then and I knew he was a brain, but only recently did I learn from reading the proclamation when he entered the Washington College Hall of Fame in 1978 that he was such an authority on Blake and wrote "several books" on him.
Not to demean the coaches I know among the top lacrosse teams in the country today, but I can't imagine any of them -- with the possible exception of Roy Simmons Jr. at Syracuse -- reading a single poem by a romantic English poet of the late 1700s, much less writing several books and articles on him.
Howard had to be a pretty good coach, too. His `67 Maryland team was the tri-national champion with Navy and Johns Hopkins. This was before the NCAA introduced a postseason championship tournament.
Remember, Navy dominated in the `60s, winning eight straight national championships. When Professor Howard's Terps beat the Mids, 5-3, in 1968, it was the first time Maryland had beaten Navy in eight years. Hezzy was Maryland's head coach from 1966 through 1969 and had an impressive record of 37-7-1. After `69, he was immersed in academia, where he also was a star.
At that time at Maryland it seemed perfectly natural that a professor of English would be the head coach of the lacrosse team. The head coach from 1928-1963 had been the fatherly Dr. Jack Faber, who was also a professor as well as head of the department of microbiology. Faber's sidekick all those years was Al Heagy, a chemist. Faber and Heagy are in the National Hall of Fame.
"Hezzy was very easy to play for," recalls Alan Lowe, now retired and living in Hudson, Fla. "He let you do as much as you could. He let us play. His assistant was Rennie Smith, who was an insurance salesman. So the head coach and his assistant were part-time coaches and we were national champions.
"Hezzy was a bit of a free spirit, but he was very likeable. He was a handsome guy. We used to like to go to his office because the girls were always coming in and cooing, `Hi, Hezzy.'"
"Hezzy," says Bill Sbarra, "was a pleasure to play for and a great guy to know. He knew the game. He was the first coach I ever saw who inverted his attackmen and midfielders. Hezzy was always level-headed and cool, even if we were way behind in a game. The day we upset Hopkins, we knew everything Hopkins was going to do. Hezzy's scouting report was brilliant."
Howard lived in retirement in Greencastle, Ind., where his wife was a teacher at DePauw University. Last year Hezzy came down with pneumonia and, after a month-long illness, he died on July 19. He was 73.
A few months before he passed away, I learned that he did not succeed at everything he touched.
"I tried to start lacrosse at DePauw," he told me on the phone. "We held a few practices in the fall. The kids had a problem -- they would not believe you could catch and throw a lacrosse ball while you were running. They thought you had to be standing still.
"After Christmas, nobody came back. Either I'm a lousy teacher or kids in Indiana just didn't like lacrosse."
Contact Bill Tanton at pubguys@uslacrosse.org.
