Hector Cowan

Cowan was the head football coach at North Carolina for the last two games in their inaugural season of 1888 (i.e. 1889 calendar year).[5] He was the school's first paid coach, and changed the style of play in that section in his two weeks spent training the team.[6][7]

After Cowan left Princeton in 1889 he became an ordained Presbyterian minister at Hope Presbyterian church in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1891.[1] While there the chancellor at the University of Kansas, Francis H. Snow, began making contact with him in an effort to convince him to come to KU and become the new head football coach. KU's very first head football coach, E.M. Hopkins aided in the effort as he was a classmate with Cowan back at Princeton. Cowan was seen as a premiere football coach at the time despite only having coached a few games previously, but he also wanted to continue his ministerial pursuits and made one of his conditions on coming to KU that he be made chapel director at the university as well as professor of physical culture. In addition chancellor Snow promised Cowan a 1-year salary of $1,000 if he were to accept the offer from KU.[2]

Cowan was the fourth head football coach at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, and he held that position for three seasons, from 1894 until 1896. There he coached John H. Outland and future Kansas head football coach, A. R. Kennedy.[8] His overall coaching record at Kansas was 15–7–1.

In February 1894 Cowan agreed to the terms laid out and his $1,000 salary was raised with $400 in donations coming from the faculty at Kansas and the remaining $600 coming from a citizens committee in conjunction with area businessmen interested in athletics.[2] Cowan arrived at KU on March 1, 1894, and thus became the very first paid head football coach in KU history.[8] As a result of him being an ordained Presbyterian minister and his title of chapel director while at KU he was often referred to as Reverend Hector W. Cowan.[9]

Hector died on October 19, 1941, on his farm in Delaware County, New York. He was survived by his wife, Anna Louise Smith (November 3, 1864 – October 20, 1945), four sons, Hector Edmund Cowan (July 2, 1893 – January 2, 1974), Walter Griffen Cowan (June 26, 1895 – July 28, 1982), John Mark Cowan (April 26, 1900 – June 16, 1978) and William Howard Cowan (May 9, 1908 – August 1, 2002), and 3 daughters, Mrs. Helen Louise Leete (August 2, 1897 – September 29, 1992), Mrs. Frances Petit Beddow (November 25, 1901 – July 8, 1998), and Mrs. Annie Smith Turnbull (August 9, 1905 – April 18, 1990).