Who is Pop Warner?

Glenn Scobey Warner was a very well known and respected coach. He coached at Georgia, Cornell, Carlisle, Pittsburgh, Stanford and Temple. Over a career that spanned 45 years, his coaching record was an impressive 313-106-32. He coached 47 consensus All-Americans including Ernie Nevers, often recognized as the greatest athlete ever, and Jim Thorpe, often referred to as the greatest football player of all time. Glenn Scobey Warner was known to the football world as "Pop".

"Pop Warner was a leader in the movement that transformed the game of football from a game of brawn to a game of skill. He developed the crouching start, the body block, the spiral forward pass and punt, the single and double wing offenses, along with other innovations that still exist in the present game. He is also credited with experimenting with safety equipment and introducing the numbering of the players. Pop Warner was one of only a few coaches in 1932 who pressed for the legalization of the free forward pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. This did much to increase the offensive possibilities of the game." (1)

So great was his instructional leadership that in 1929 the "Pop Warner Program" was founded. What started as a local football club in Philadelphia has grown into a national youth football league. Today the Pop Warner program exists in 38 states, Japan, Russia and Mexico and has more than 300,000 players and cheerleaders participating every year.

(1) Quoted from the South Orange Athletic Association