Richard C. (Dick) Harlow, a 1906 Cheltenham High School graduate, ornithologist, and College Football Hall of Famer, is also a graduate of Penn State University, where he earned a M.A. in Zoology, and a veteran of two World Wars.
After playing tackle at Penn State, Harlow went on to a 26-year career as a head college football coach. From 1915 to 1947, he headed up Western Maryland, Colgate, Penn State, and Harvard, finishing his career with a record of 149-69-17.
An Army Lieutenant, Harlow’s coaching career was interrupted by both World War I and World War II. He was the first non-alumnus to become head coach at Harvard, and in 1936 he was voted National Coach of the Year.
In 1954, he was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Georgia. From his Hall of Fame biography:
Dick Harlow was hardly a typical college football coach. A collector of birds’ eggs and fancier of ferns, Harlow represented the rare combination of intellect and rugged individualism. He was a professor of Ornithology (the study of birds). He was also a masterful coach whose teams were unusually good at the hidden-ball offenses which involved clever faking and precision timing. A gentle man who rarely raised his voice, Harlow would chastise an errant player by simply insisting, “Do it my way, dear boy.” His teams at Harvard, Colgate, Penn State and Western Maryland were noted for doing things Harlow’s way, which usually proved to be the most successful way of winning a football game. Perhaps it was because Harlow was a bit of a psychologist. At Colgate in 1924, he had a druggist make up some harmless sugar pills which he brought to the locker room just before the start of a game. “Men,” he whispered, “these tablets are made from an old Indian formula that I found during my wanderings in Pennsylvania. They’re compounded from the glands of a buffalo and give you abnormal strength.” His gullible charges downed the pills and won the game in smashing fashion. Harlow’s players demanded the pills before each game until finally beaten a few weeks later. “Football is all in the mind,” Harlow told them. And he was right.
Harlow taught ornithology—the study of birds—and zoology at Harvard.
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Photos: National Football Foundation