Coach Dave Urick on Ed Howard

Buffalo natives,  Hobart African American defensemen Mac Nelson (Timon High School) and Ed Howard (Canisius High School). Nelson, a football player who walked on and made the varsity, persuaded Howard, a former basketball player at the college, to walk on to the Hobart Lacrosse team in 1977. Photo circa 1978. Howard died on June 16, 2012.

Back when Ed Howard played lacrosse Coach Dave Urick served as the defensive coordinator of Hobart’s lacrosse program under head coach Jerry Schimdt (John Hopkins, National Lacrosse Hall Fame). Schimdt is the only lacrosse player to ever appear on the cover of Sport Illustrate during his playing days at the Hop. Ed Howard represented one of a host of Hobart lacrosse players that started for the Statesmen who never played the game before arriving in Geneva, N.Y. “We made a living out of kids like Eddie,” African Americans Marion “Mac” Nelson, Greg Williams (Henniger) and many other great athletes that we taught how to play the game of lacrosse,” says Coach Urick. “Hank Janczyk, the head coach at Gettysburg College, and Frank Fedorjaka, the head coach at Bucknell University were guys just like Ed,” good freshmen athletes who never played the game but learned it under Urick and Schimdt. Howard came to Hobart from Canisius High School in Buffalo, a prestigious Jesuit school where he excelled in the classroom and earned awards playing football, basketball and track and field. Ed held a sectional high jump record in track and excelled on the basketball court playing small forward in high school. Hobart’s basketball coach recruited Ed to play basketball but soon after the basketball season started his freshmen year at Hobart Ed did not see eye to eye with the head coach or his system and left the team. “I quit the team and left frustrated at winter break ready to transfer” says Howard. Just then Mac Nelson, a wide receiver on the football team and lacrosse walk on approached him. Nelson, a sophomore at the time told Howard “that the coaches had been following my situation on the basketball team and they wanted to meet with me,” recalls Ed; more tomorrow.

My Series on Hobart All American Ed Howard: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=Ed+Howard