Pop Warner

Bio

Glenn "Pop" Warner helped fashion football in many ways. Consider the facts: he was the first to coach the dummy-scrimmage; he introduced the practice of numbering plays; he was the first to teach the spiral punt and one of the first to advocate the spiral pass; he invented the double-wing formation, with an unbalanced line for more blocking strength. From 1895 through 1938, his teams at Georgia, Cornell, Carlisle, Pittsburgh, Stanford and Temple rolled to a combined record of 319-106-32. He had 47 players selected to the All-America football team, including the legendary Jim Thorpe. He also invented trap blocking, the screen pass, the rolling block, the naked reverse, hidden-ball plays, series plays, the unbalanced line and backfield. All came from Warner's fertile and imaginative mind. He also left another kind of legacy: "You cannot play two kinds of football at once, dirty and good.... You play the way you practice. Practice right...and you will react right." Glenn Scobey Warner enrolled at Cornell University and, as the oldest freshman, was given the nickname "Pop". He played guard on the football team 1892-94. A national network of football leagues for junior players was named for him.