Lou Howard
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Lou Howard (December 16, 1923 – January 25, 2016) was an American high school football coach and politician. He is the only high school football coach in the Long Island Sports Hall of Fame.[1] He was also a newspaper publisher, educator and aerospace instructor.[2]
Howard was raised in Amityville. He went to Amityville Memorial High where he played linebacker and was all-scholastic.[3] He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, entering as an aviation cadet and became a pilot. After the war he went to Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, University of Missouri and University of Nebraska before graduating from Springfield College in 1948. He later obtained a master's in educational administration from Columbia University and a PhD in aerospace technology from Western Colorado University. Before returning to Amityville High School, he was director of the McBurney YMCA in Manhattan[4] that was the inspiration for the Village People's song.[5]
Football coach
He was a driver's ed instructor and football coach 1952–1968 at Amityville Memorial High School,[3] where he used motivational psychology to field his winning teams.[6] He never had a losing season, won nine straight league championships, and has been ascribed as the originator of the shotgun formation.[7] Howard wrote an article on the "exploded short punt offense" for the Scholastic Coach Magazine in 1956. Howard notes that this was the same basic offense used by Red Hickey four years later, that became called the shotgun. His team used the shotgun formation long before NFL teams.[8] With 82 wins and 15 defeats, he has the highest winning percentage in Long Island history.[9] With his knowledge of sports psychology he was asked to give pre-game talks for several NFL teams, including the Dallas Cowboys. He wrote several books on football, including one on the shotgun.[10]
Aerospace and educator
In 1969 Howard left Amityville High School to become founding chair of aerospace studies at Farmingdale State College. He helped pioneer and develop the program, which grew to be a 4 year degree program.[11] He flew a plane on his 90th birthday celebration at Farmingdale.[3] President Nixon appointed him to serve on a federal advisory committee to help design the first space shuttle for NASA.[1][2] Howard authored a book on the usage of the instrument landing system, and it became the standard in the field. He also served as a flight instructor and F.A. A. flight examiner.[3] During his legislative epoch, he split time between the legislature and SUNY-Farmingdale.[4] He considered himself as an educator first, and then a politician; he continued at Farmingdale after the end of his political career.[12] He served two terms on the SUNY Board of Trustees from 1997 – 2003.[11] He retired from the Stony Brook Council, an oversight and advisory body at Stony Brook University, in the summer of 2015.[13]
In 2013 he was inducted into the Farmingdale State College Aviation Hall of Fame.[14]