Hobart Football History
Hobart High School established athletic programs to promote school spirit. At the beginning of the century, the first programs included men's and women's basketball as well as track and field. Men's competitive, high school sports did not play a major role in defining Hobart's identity prior to 1920.
Then, in 1925, the town built a new gym that solidified Hobart's commitment to competitive high school sports. Ironically, Hobart was slow to adopt the sport of football. Even after establishing a team in 1927, the school struggled for two decades to develop a program that could compete with teams from the region's larger industrial cities.
In 1949, Russ Deal became Hobart's head football coach. An All-American at Indiana University, Deal improved dramatically the quality of Hobart football. In doing so, he established a winning tradition, proving that a small school could compete successfully against larger, Calumet region high schools. After 1955, the town identified with its winning football program.
In 1965, Don Howell replaced Russ Deal. Howell had played for Deal at Hobart, and, like Deal, he starred as a college player at Indiana. Surrounding himself with coaches who shared an intense commitment to winning football, Howell became the "Vince Lombardi of Hobart." He won four state championships and established the school as one of the elite football programs in Indiana. High school football became an inseparable part of Hobart's identity, a small town's claim to fame within the region.
1. Before 1920, Hobart High students regarded men's and women's sports as relatively equal. The women's teams, like the men's, competed against other schools. In 1909, the boy's basketball team won only two of eleven games. In most instances, "the scores against them were quite large." In contrast, "the girls made up for the defeats of the boys by winning every game they played." Their six victories against teams from Crown Point, Gary, and East Chicago secured for the school the championship of Lake County. The high status of the girls' teams continued into the 1920s.
Athletic facilities at Hobart were minimal before the 1920s. However, the school contained a fine auditorium and stage. High school theater played an important role in community life.
2. Early in the 1920s, Hobart built a high school gymnasium. Afterward, physical education and competitive sports played a more significant role in high school life.
However, the school did not have its own football field. Games played at Mundell Field and City Ballpark attracted modest crowds.
3. During the Great Depression, football became the most important sport at Hobart High School. But the school did not establish a high quality program until after 1949 when Russ Deal became head coach. Deal's teams' played aggressive, physical football. They won 74% of their games, establishing a winning tradition that included victories against much larger schools.
4. Don Howell succeeded Deal as head coach in 1966. A protégé of Deal, Howell surrounded himself with dedicated coaches, who also had played for Deal. A state-champion power lifter, Howell established a weight program and taught the fundamentals of aggressive, hard-hitting football. An emotional leader, Howell frequently spoke of his deep, religious convictions. Under Howell, Hobart won four state championships, winning 81% of their games.
In the twentieth century, Hobart High School began to promote athletics. Beginning in 1903, the school held track meets and awarded medals for the broad jump, pole vault, hammer throw, discus, shot put, and various races. The decision troubled many of the faculty. They questioned the value of playing games and awarding prizes. "(T)he glory of being a champion in any branch of athletics seem(ed) silly to serious minded people." But "competitions prizes, medals, (and) honors" appealed to the high mindedness of a new generation of students. In the 1908 yearbook, William Marquardt argued that sports "educated (students) to habits which fit them to receive high motives." Recognizing this fact, the faculty allowed students to create competitive sports programs. They hoped that sports would awaken students to a recognition of higher values.
The earliest athletic programs were not sanctioned by the school. Students organized teams by themselves. In 1908, a group of students formed the Iroquois Athletic Club in an attempt to establish a football team. Unfortunately, after selecting a captain, purchasing equipment, and beginning practice, they failed in efforts to schedule games against other schools. Consequently, basketball and track remained the premier sports at Hobart High. In 1922, when the school began to sanction teams, they did not include football. Instead, they established programs in basketball and track and committed $60,000 to building Roosevelt Gymnasium. The gym contained permanent, concrete bleachers capable of seating 800 basketball fans. At this time, competitive women's sports received more attention than football.
Hobart High did not establish a football team until 1927. Thirty boys showed up for the first practice, ten fewer than had shown up for the first basketball practice in 1922. The football team finished its first season with five losses and one tie, losing by an average of twenty-three points. The 1928 yearbook explained that Hobart boys were "unskilled in even the most primary fundamentals. Victories were not expected. Instillation of physical and moral courage, a knowledge of fundamentals, and a development of team play were the aims, and as these essentials were accomplished we consider the first season a most successful one."
Establishing a Successful Program
Of course, victories mattered. Hobart won only three games in its second season. However, students believed that Coach Merner Call had begun to school his team in fundamentals. Call was a hands-on coach, "always prompt to jump into a pair of moleskins and take the lumps of the game with his team." Due to his skills as coach, Hobart High won the Little Seven Conference Championship in 1929, finishing the season with a record of six wins, two loses, and a tie.
Unfortunately, Call left Hobart in 1934. The town recognized his contribution. Under Call, football replaced basketball "as the king of sports." The school paper suggested that Call had established high ideals among his players. "He doesn't drive his boys to win, but merely tells the squad those necessary fundamentals which deal with the strong and weak points of his team and their opponents."
From 1935 until 1948, Hobart experienced difficulty establishing a consistent, winning program. The Works Project Administration built the school a new football field, the Brickie Bowl. But the team changed coaches eight times, employing six different men to head the football program. During the most successful season in 1942, Coach Tom Moore won eight games and lost one. Unfortunately, he was drafted into military service early in 1943. Upon his return, he coached for two less successful seasons. During these seasons, Hobart suffered crushing defeats against the larger Gary and East Chicago schools. Many fans believed that a small school such as Hobart could not be successful against tough competition. Interest in local football had reached a stumbling block. Without the ability to defeat larger, more powerful schools, Hobart lacked a powerful winning tradition. Athletically, it was a modestly successful fish in a very small pond.
Hobart Football Transformed: Russ Deal & the Winning Tradition
On May1, 1947, Athletic Director Frank Kurth announced that Russell Deal would serve as assistant coach for the football team. A native Hoosier, Deal was a tackle and captain of Indiana University's Big Ten Championship team of 1945. Both the Associated Press and United Press named Deal to the All-Big-Ten Team. In 1946, he signed to play for the Baltimore Colts. But his college coach convinced Deal that at six-feet and 195 pounds he was too small to play professional football and would be happier coaching and teaching at a high school. Certainly, Hobart felt fortunate. Deal had competed at a very high level. The school believed that his expertise as a player would translate into victories on the field.
When Deal replaced Coach Moore two years later, he quickly set out to establish a winning tradition. He knew that winning mattered; winning made tradition possible. Supported by Kurth, he started a junior high football program so that players would be better prepared for high school competition. He also created the booster club, a group of local citizens, mostly graduates, who provided funds to support improvement in Brickies' football. The club paid for equipment and special needs, including the installation of lights and a sprinkler system at the Brickie Bowl. A former player and later Hobart coach, Bill Cope remembered that Deal actively recruited players by approaching them in the hallways to interest them in football. Under Deal's leadership, Hobart's football teams increased in size, with call-outs regularly attracting one hundred students. From 1950 to 1955, Hobart won three Calumet Conference football championships and were runners up twice. However, Deal chose to leave the conference. He considered Calumet Conference teams inferior to teams in the larger, industrial cities of Hammond, Gary, and East Chicago. Hobart became an independent. After one losing season, the school fielded its best team to date, the 1956 squad, which defeated two Gary schools and finished fifth in the state. Over a five year period, the team posted a record of thirty-nine wins, five losses, and one tie. The record included victories over larger schools.
In order to win, Deal trained players rigorously. He inspired them, sending many on to play college football. An important group of these players eventually returned to Hobart and advanced even further the commitment to winning. When Deal retired as coach after the 1965 season, three former players comprised the bulk of his coaching staff: Don Howell, Tom Kerr, and Bill Cope.
Each coach shared a deep respect for Deal. Each was qualified to succeed him. When Frank Kurth announced Howell as the choice, the new coach promised to carry on the winning tradition by stressing "fundamental, hard-hitting football."
Don Howell: Hobart's Icon
Like Deal, Howell had played at Indiana University as an undersized lineman (five feet nine inches, 210 lbs.). He too was selected as All-Big Ten and captain of the team. But he faced the difficult challenge of developing further a successful program. As a coach, Don Howell far surpassed Russ Deal. Howell had the best winning percentage (81%) of any high school football coach in Indiana history. He retired after thirty-three seasons, with a record of 314 wins, 73 losses, and two ties. Howell provided the small town of Hobart with an identity and a sense of achievement. Under Howell, Hobart possessed the most successful football program in Northern Indiana.
Obviously, Howell cared deeply about coaching in Hobart. He and his assistant for thirty-two years, Tom Kerr, both played for Hobart in the 1950s and went to star in the Big Ten. They became next-door neighbors who developed a brotherly affection. Like their mentor, Russ Deal they were hands-on coaches. Howell motivated the team. Kerr taught the x's and o's.
Howell introduced weight lifting into the football program before any other school in the region. Because he was small, Howell lifted weights in high school to gain strength. Despite warnings that it would make him "muscle-bound," he continued to lift throughout his career, including his time at Indiana University. Later, he said "I knew when I got into coaching, I was going to have a weight program no matter what." Howell installed an off-season program at Hobart in 1965, long before it was common even at the college and professional levels. He considered weight training the key to promoting a work ethic essential to winning.
Equally important, Howell believed in prayer. Prayer before football games was a tradition at Hobart established by Coach Deal. A devout Catholic, Howell said "It's a tradition, and it will continue to be as long as I'm here. We've lost a lot in society because we've left out God, the power greater than us." The team did not pray for victory. They prayed to play their best. The Brickies continue that tradition today.
In 1970, Hobart joined the Duneland conference. Hobart had by far the smallest enrollment among schools in the newly formed conference. Nevertheless, success was immediate. However, Howell failed to win the biggest games. Hobart lost state championship games in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1985. When Hobart again approached a championship game in 1987, The Chicago Tribune suggested that for a decade no team was "more successful--or more frustrated."
When Don Howell retired in February of 1999, he was replaced by Charlie Boston, a former player and assistant coach. Boston promised to carry on the tradition just as Howell had done a generation earlier. But the tradition had changed. Hobart had become champions. Expectations had grown substantially.
To everyone's surprise, ten months later, Don Howell died of heart failure. He was working out at the time. Local papers in Hammond, Gary, and Hobart eulogized Howell as "the Vince Lombardi of Hobart." The region's sports pages reported the event for weeks. The larger, Chicago press expressed modest interest. Howell is a local legend. This, probably, is the highest honor a high school coach can achieve.
As a local legend, Howell represents a high time in Hobart history. At his retirement, an emotional response arose primarily because his football teams had won games. At his funeral, the response differed. Everyone spoke of how his "legacy extended outside the confines of the white lines." His players spoke most fervently. As a coach, he worked very closely with students. According to their accounts, most players believed he had transformed their lives by sharing with them a commitment to excellence and a sense of higher purpose.
BRICKIE FOOTBALL HISTORY