The REAL Frank Howard doesn’t ROW His Boat
So, I promised to talk about my newspaper work and being a photojournalist. I shoot a ton of headshots and portraits in my Mount Holly studio, now, but I started out shooting film and being on many a photo staff since college.
Clemson Football isn’t in everyone’s mind now, but college football is and so I am going to talk about two stories that involve Frank Howard, the legendary Clemson head football coach who also became the athletics director there.
One story comes from a lot of reporters and I am only going to relate those details that are supported by two or more folks telling me. It’s a funny enough story. And the first story involves myself so you’re just going have to take my word for not embellishing too much. And I am not.
Anyway, I came from a newspaper in Maryland in the mid ‘80’s to the Charlotte Observer in gorgeous North Carolina. Back when we used cameras that weren’t computers, manual exposure and manual focus-I actually made my home in Rock Hill, South Carolina-a suburb of Charlotte, NC. Anyways, newspapers had a bunch of money back then and I either flew in a hired airplane or drove to Clemson football games in South Carolina. Clemson football was a big deal back then-mostly because the Charlotte Observer competed for readers in both North and South Carolina. There were six editions printed of the Charlotte Observer and the fifth edition was the South Carolina edition.
I was sent to a Clemson football game by private airplane and had one camera with a 600 mm f/4 lens on it and a camera with a smaller wide angle on it-probably an f/2.8 24mm. Once the ball was kicked off, I had ten minutes on my watch to make a frame of a particular Clemson Player with the ball. And it wasn’t the quarterback. I had a car waiting to take me to the small airport in Clemson, sitting outside of a certain gate. Georgia Tech took the opening kick-off down the field and finally kicked a field goal. It was twenty minutes gone on my clock, but my subject caught the Georgia Tech kick-off and ran up-field. I had 10 or 20 frame3s, but no car waiting to take me to the airport. I enlisted some folks without tickets who came to see the stadium full to drive me to the airport. They were great.
In addition to that photo, I was supposed to go into the tailgate area and make some photos of the fans getting geared up and fed before the game. I went to the area right next to the stadium and walked through the tailgaters and settled on a group of guys that were Bar-B-Queing an entire pig. Looked serious enough to me. I made a bunch of photos and went to get names of those cooking. A very quiet guy was dressed in a very loud purple suit and just smiled when I asked his name. He was easily in more than one of the photos, so I really needed his name. One of the guys cooking looked at me and asked if I had ever heard of Frank Howard. “Yea” I said” he was a big guy that hit the ball out of RFK Stadium for the Washington Senators.” I went on about how my dad used to bring me to Senators games to watch the big guy hit the ball out of the park. And the bunch of them just laughed and one guy held his laughter long enough to ask me where I grew up? In or around Washington, DC, I explained. “When you get into that stadium and look up, you’ll know who the real Frank Howard is,” he said.
And I left-at that point not knowing if I could identify that dude in the loud purple suit. I made my way into the stadium and looked up. And then I saw it across the field. A tribute to the real, Southern Frank Howard. Clemson University Memorial Stadium-Home of Frank Howard field. So, I had covered Maryland football, but never anything as near and dear to the fans of Tiger football. This Yankee finally knew who Frank Howard was… and that he had a REAL loud purple suit on. And just to make sure, I heard a few belly laughs from the stands. I turned around and there at the bottom of the stands were the four or five guys I had photographed, including the quiet guy in the very loud purple suit. Yup-I knew who the real, Southern Frank Howard was then. Not as tall or big as I remember
My second story about Frank Howard was when he was athletics director at the university and told to me by a number of Clemson faithful and more sports reporters than I can remember.
An Ivy league professor was hired to come to Clemson University from Princeton. When the Ivy League Professor saw how beautiful Lake Hartwell that surrounds the campus was. He found out that Clemson did not have a University crew team and he was shocked. It’s the perfect place and all he had to do was convince the Athletics’ Director and then the board of how great a rowing team Clemson University could easily have. What a great thing to promote Clemson athletics! So, he worked up a Power point presentation. All they would need is $10,000 to get it all started. That professor was really excited.
That professor was really excited until he met the school athletic director-Frank Howard. The professor didn’t really know Frank Howard. Didn’t know that he won a National Championship as head football coach. He really didn’t know a thing (much like me).
Frank Howard sat silently as the Ivy League professor excitedly went through his presentation. It made a ton of sense that Clemson should have a crew team suit up. Perfect spot to practice-perfect spot to compete. And after the professor finished and waited for the athletic department’s official endorsement. A quiet and somber Frank Howard rotated his desk chair around and said…
“I ain’t taking money from my football team to give to a sport where a man’s gotta sit on his ass and go backwards to win.”
And with that Frank Howard held the door open so the Ivy League professor could leave with all his dreams of a crew team and his power point presentation and a very little bit of his dignity.
