Scoop Howard

He was called “Scoop” because when he fell, he fell with such might and force that he “scooped up” the turf, mud, rocks or whatever was in his path.

Scoop Howard played three years for Albertville as a running back under Coach Hoyt Levie. During his last year, 1933, he weighed 190 pounds. That was big in those days. In 1933, the Albertville boys came up against what perhaps the best team was ever fielded by Guntersville. In its write-up of the game, a Guntersville newspaper lauded its players in general but heaped special praise on a couple of them for they had each made unassisted tackles of Scoop Howard.

Howard accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Alabama, but he lacked one-half credit getting his high school diploma. He then had brief football stops at Birmingham-Southern, a junior college in Mississippi and Ole Miss.

Bama was playing Ole Miss in baseball when Hank Crisp spotted Scoop. Within minutes, the Ole Miss Coaches pulled Scoop aside and told him that he would not be eligible to play for them unless he started over as a freshman. If he did that, Alabama wanted the money back they had spent on him for summer school. The Ole Miss Coach had another plan at what is now Southern Mississippi. A former player of his was coaching there and he might take a chance on Scoop since that school did not play Alabama. The first two years he played running back, but after a knee operation, he played tackle at a weight of 220 pounds (1939).

After coaching stops in Mississippi and Fort Payne and military service, he became the head coach at Albertville in 1947 and 1948 (record 13-3-3). Howard resigned to take over the family business. His first order of business was to contact his former coach at Southern Miss, who put him and Vernon Wells together (the next Aggie coach). In 1974, Scoop was inducted into the Southern Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.