Linfielder Craig Howard, SOU head football coach: Self-proclaimed 'love-em-up' coaching style

Southern Oregon's inspirational coach Craig Howard: 'He could have been Billy Graham'

By Nick Daschel for The Oregonian 12/17/2015

Alabama's Nick Saban is the blueprint for college football coaching success today in America. His buttoned-down, no-nonsense approach has become popular for coaches looking to copycat a winning philosophy.

It's not the only gold medal approach, however. Southern Oregon's Craig Howard is on the verge of winning back-to-back NAIA national championships with his self-proclaimed "love-em-up" coaching style.

Though the 63-year-old Howard knows his Xs and Os, he wins over players, parents, administrators and fans with inspiration.

After Howard spoke at a banquet two days prior to last year's NAIA championship game against Marian (Indiana) in Daytona Beach, Florida, fans from both teams, so moved by his words, rose and gave him a standing ovation.

……………

NAIA Championship game

Southern Oregon vs. Marian (Indiana), 3 p.m. Saturday, Daytona Beach, FloridaWatch: ESPN3

SOU viewing parties in the Portland area:

On Deck Sports Bar & Grill, 225 SW Broadway, Portland

Generations Bar & Grill, 21900 SW Alexander Lane, Sherwood

Main Event Sports Grill, 3200 SE 164th Ave, Vancouver

…………………

During Southern Oregon's first-round playoff game in November against Kansas Wesleyan, Howard was so impressed with a play made by wide receiver Jeremy Scottow, he took Scottow into the stands to his parents -- during the game -- to tell them what a great play their son had made. Then Howard returned to the field to coach.

Legendary Oregon Tech basketball coach Danny Miles, who coached football with Howard at OIT during the 1980s, said prior to games in the locker room, Howard would often dim the lights, turn on "Rocky" music at a high level, then introduce the starting lineup to the team.

"The kids would leave the dressing room crying," Miles said.

"He could have been Billy Graham if he wanted to be a preacher. He can fire people up," said Gary Mires, Howard's high school football coach at Grants Pass. "He should be a preacher, in fact, the way he can really get a lot of people behind him."

During his playing days at Grants Pass High School and Linfield College, Howard only wanted to be a football coach. Howard hung on to the profession through good times and bad, from programs that folded to winning state and national championships, from high school and college, working in a handful of states, though mostly Oregon and Florida.

In Oregon alone, Howard spent time coaching college at Southern Oregon, Oregon Tech, Oregon and Portland State, and high school at Roseburg, Bend and Jesuit.

Howard's coaching career started at Roseburg in 1971. After a 16-year stint in Florida, where he was best known as Tim Tebow's high school coach, Howard is back in the Rogue Valley, where he plans to end his career at Southern Oregon.

Knee injuries have slowed Howard over the years, and he talks with a bit of Southern twang. His idea of cursing is saying "goll dang." Miles says Howard looks a little like "a country bumpkin, but don't let that fool you. He's on top of everything."

"He's an old-time coach, blustery and he gets on the kids, but in a way you appreciate and understand," said Howard Morris, Oregon Tech's retired athletic director.

Miles recalls a 1988 NAIA playoff game against Pacific Lutheran, where Oregon Tech trailed 35-7 at halftime. Howard, then the defensive coordinator, stormed into the locker room.

"Craig looked at the players, and said, 'We've done too many things. You're confused.' He took the scouting report and threw it against the wall. Said we're going to play base defense," Miles said. "Went out and won 56-35."

The foundation of Howard's coaching career, as is the case with most, started as a player. Mires remembers Howard as "that little red-headed kid who got after you," a linebacker who once had 35 tackles in a game against Medford.

Howard played college football at Linfield, where he started as a 165-pound linebacker. Howard got his starting shot when all-conference linebacker Virgil Ripley went down with an injury. Ripley never got his job back, as Howard went on to start the remainder of his career, and was three times honored as Linfield's Most Inspirational Player.

All the while, Howard had a coaching career in mind. While Howard was still a student at Linfield, Mires said every time he went to a coaching clinic in Oregon, there was Howard standing in the background, "writing stuff down."

"I really believed at age 22, I was going to be head coach at Notre Dame before I was 30," Howard said.

At an early age, Howard learned the key to college football coaching was the kitchen table.

"He walks into the kid's house, and by the time he walks out the door, he has won over the mom," Morris said.

Howard left the Southern Oregon area in 1992 after Oregon Tech dropped football. A college job in Alabama materialized, and quickly flopped, and Howard had had enough. Howard was off to Florida to coach high school football, and after a while, thought he would remain there until retirement. Howard was on quite a roll, particularly at Nease High School, where during a five-year stretch he not only coached Tebow, but 45 players who went on to play Division I football.

It was during his Nease days that Howard met then-Florida coach Urban Meyer. In a roundabout way, that relationship is what helped pave the way toward Howard's current gig at Southern Oregon.

Meyer and Howard talked for hours about coaching philosophy, and many of those thoughts ended up in Howard's 300-page manifesto he simply called "The Plan." That book, made up of Howard's coaching thoughts, is what he handed to SOU athletic director Matt Sayre before interviewing for the job in 2011.

Howard was unaware the Raiders job had opened at the end of the 2010 season, but an Ashland-area campaign was brewing. Miles and Morris separately called Howard in Florida to make him aware, then pitched Howard to Sayre.

Sayre knew something was up when one day he listened to a voice message "from someone who sounded like a 15-year-old ... Hi, my name is Tim Tebow..."

Howard blew away the SOU hiring committee not only with "The Plan," but a power point presentation outlining his thoughts on restoring Southern Oregon football. Sayre says it wasn't a tough call when the decision was made to hire Howard.

At the forefront of Howard's philosophy heading into the Southern Oregon job were two things. We're going to love our players. And we're going to win a national championship.

"Someone called me the Pied Piper because I said we're going to win a national championship here. They thought I was crazy," Howard said.

The mantra of loving the players caught some of Howard's assistants by surprise, mostly because they hadn't thought of their job that way. Among Howard's demands are no name calling, and no cussing at practice.

"It's changed how some of them coach," Howard said. "If we're to develop a program at Southern Oregon, there has to be a lot of love between the players and coaches. You don't get paid a lot in small college football, so you'd better like the people you're around."

Following a 5-5 season during Howard's first year at Southern Oregon, the Raiders have had four consecutive winning seasons and three playoff appearances. SOU is 40-11 the past four years, with two NAIA championship game appearances.

During a coaching career of more than four decades, Howard has been here, there and everywhere. But there was never a doubt he could coach.

"I never got to the point where I'm going to have to sell insurance," Howard said. "I love coaching and I love football. I love this so much, I can't believe they pay me."
..................

Craig Howard, Southern Oregon University football coach, dies at age 64

By Tim Brown, Oregonian, 1/20/2017

Craig Howard, the Southern Oregon University head football coach who led the Raiders to an NAIA National Championship in 2014, has died at age 64. The news was announced by the school on Friday.

Southern Oregon's inspirational coach Craig Howard: 'He could have been Billy Graham'

Southern Oregon football Craig Howard has coached more than a dozen high school and college teams during his career spanning more than four decades

A complete release from Southern Oregon University:

Craig Howard, the head football coach who captivated the Rogue Valley while raising the bar at Southern Oregon University and earned the love of his team for the family culture he instilled, passed away Thursday night in his home. He was 64.

"He is with God now," said his wife, Valerie.

The Howard family has asked for privacy but will announce services in the coming days. Student group grief counseling will be available from 3-5 p.m. Friday in the Rogue River Room.

Howard's singular enthusiasm for the game and optimism about a program that averaged three wins in the eight seasons prior to his arrival turned heads soon after he was hired on Feb. 9, 2011. His lofty promise was a national championship; it took him less than four years to deliver in 2014, when the Raiders won a school-record 13th game to capture their first NAIA title in Daytona Beach, Fla.

By the end of the night, he delivered on another promise he'd made at the beginning of that week - stripping down with his team and taking a triumphant plunge into the Atlantic Ocean, their first act as champions.

"Coach Howard was energized, passionate and as full of love as ever," SOU Director of Athletics Matt Sayre said. "He loved his team, his coaches, the recruits he and his staff were talking with and signing, and - above all - his family.

"He was an amazing man. He was an inspiration to all those who knew him. He created a legacy with the lives he had such a positive impact on. He molded men of character, strength and honor and always placed that above winning football games. We will miss him dearly, but are thankful to have had him as our friend, mentor, coach and role model. We are all better people for having Coach Craig Howard in our lives."

Howard was a product of Grants Pass and a 1974 graduate of Linfield College. He compiled a record of 50-23 with the Raiders, giving him the best win percentage (.685) in school history. In his second season, he led the Raiders to the 2012 Frontier Conference title and their first NAIA postseason appearance in 10 years.

Prior to winning the 2014 championship, the Raiders had never been past the second round of the 16-team playoff. Howard was named the Rawlings NAIA Coach of the Year for the feat, and a year later he brought the Raiders to Daytona again. During their back-to-back runs to the title game, the Raiders knocked off two top-ranked teams, a second-ranked team and a third-ranked team - all on the road.

Howard started his collegiate coaching career as a defensive coordinator at Oregon Tech and Portland State. He got his first head job in 1991 at Oregon Tech, where he went 8-13 in two seasons. Before his return to the Rogue Valley, he went 76-23 as a head high school coach in Florida from 2003 to 2010. At Nease High, where he mentored future Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, he went to three championship games and won the 2005 state title.

Howard spent his final hours Thursday doing what he loved: recruiting, and familiarizing future Raiders with the "Character, Strength and Honor" mantra he popularized at SOU.

He is survived his wife, Valerie; his daughters Amy and Emily; sons Bo, Jordan and Ryan; and five grandchildren.

………….

Craig Howard, Southern Oregon football coach who dies at 64, is remembered for passion and enthusiasm

By Nick Daschel, Oregonian, 1/20/2017

Craig Howard may have been great with football Xs and Os. Might have been average. Who knows? Because for players, coaches and others who knew Howard, the 64-year-old Southern Oregon coach who died Thursday night, his love for life and football overshadowed everything.

"Being around him, you were just a happier person," said former Raiders' quarterback Austin Dodge, who helped lead Southern Oregon to the NAIA national championship in 2014.

Danny Miles, the former Oregon Tech basketball coach who retired last year after winning more than 1,000 games, once coached football with Howard at Oregon Tech. Miles said it was common for Howard to whip the football team into such a frenzy in the locker room "that you'd come out with a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes."

"He's the great motivator. He was really special," Miles said. "Kids just went to war for him."

During his third year at Southern Oregon in 2013, Howard took the Raiders to Montana to play national power Carroll College. The Raiders made a furious rally, scoring the game's final three touchdowns but came up short of the win. Miles recalls eating dinner that night, and texting congratulations on a good effort to Howard.

"He said, 'We would have won the game, but not all my kids believed,'" Miles said.

It was the mental game, as much as the physical game, that gave Howard's teams their edge. Southern Oregon played in back-to-back NAIA championship games in 2014 and 2015, and did things during his six-year tenure that have never been accomplished in Raider football history.

"He always said, the reason we won the national championship is, the kids believed. He really had kids believing. Several times they'd come back and win games, when they were down 20 points in the third quarter," Howard said.

Howard's high school coach at Grants Pass, Gary Mires, once said "He could have been Billy Graham if we wanted to be a preacher. He should be a preacher, in fact, the way he can really get a lot of people behind him."

Howard graduated from Grants Pass and played football at Linfield, where he graduated in 1974. He spent nearly two decades coaching Oregon football in high school (Roseburg, Bend, Jesuit) and college (Southern Oregon, Oregon Tech, Oregon, Portland State) before leaving the state.

Howard coached high school football for 16 years in Florida. Howard routinely churned out Division I talent during his Florida run, most notably quarterback Tim Tebow, who went on to lead University of Florida to two national championships. Howard was a Florida high school trendsetter, thriving with a spread offense in a state that was largely wing-T and power football.

But there was a homecoming in 2011, when Howard returned to Southern Oregon to take over a Raider program that had been mired in irrelevance for years. Howard won over the SOU hiring committee with a plan that included a power-point presentation, and a bold proclamation that the Raiders would win a national title within five years of his hiring.

As it turned out, Howard needed only four years. A big part of the Raiders' drive to the 2014 national title was Howard winning over Dodge, who transferred from Central Washington to Southern Oregon in 2012. Dodge went on to set nearly every NAIA career passing record, and won national player of the year honors in 2014.

"He changed my life," Dodge said of Howard. "He wasn't just a coach, he was a great role model, a great man. Most of all he was a great friend. Any of his players, we could go into his office and talk to him, man to man, as a friend. That sense of friendship and sense of family, that's why he was such a great leader."

In a statement, Southern Oregon athletic director Matt Sayre said "Coach Howard was energized, passionate and full of love as ever. He loved his team, his coaches, the recruits he and his staff were talking with and signing, and above all, his family. ... we were all better people for having Coach Howard in our lives."

Howard was 50-23 in six years at Southern Oregon, and 5-6 this past season. The Raiders qualified for the NAIA playoffs three times during his tenure, the only football postseason appearances in Southern Oregon history.

The loss of Howard leaves a sizable hole in Southern Oregon athletics.

"This shocks a lot of people," Miles said. "Southern Oregon was big in Ashland, but never got into Medford much before Craig got there. Craig did a great job of doing camps in Klamath Falls and Medford. He got the whole Rogue Valley involved."

Howard is survived by his wife, Valerie, daughters Amy and Emily, and sons Bo, Jordan and Ryan. Services are pending.

...................
According to ….
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-howard-5109543b
--Linfield College = Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), Health and Physical Education/Fitness 1970-1974
--United States Sports Academy Master's degree, Sports Management 1991-1992

..............
Click on image below to see entire article from Oregonian Jan. 12, 1982.