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Bill Roper (American football)

American athlete and coach (1880–1933)

Field	Value
name	Bill Roper
image	BillRoper.jpg
caption	Roper in 1909
birth_date
birth_place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
player_years1	1899–1902
player_team1	Princeton
player_positions	End (football)
Outfielder (baseball)
coach_sport1	Football
coach_years2	1903–1904
coach_team2	VMI
coach_years3	1906–1908
coach_team3	Princeton
coach_years4	1909
coach_team4	Missouri
coach_years5	1910–1911
coach_team5	Princeton
coach_years6	1915–1916
coach_team6	Swarthmore
coach_years7	1919–1930
coach_team7	Princeton
coach_sport8	Basketball
coach_years9	1902–1903
coach_team9	Princeton
overall_record	112–38–18 (football)
8–7 (basketball)
championships	Football
4 national (1906, 1911, 1920, 1922)
1 MVC (1909)
CFBHOF_year	1951
CFBHOF_id	1444

Outfielder (baseball) 8–7 (basketball) 4 national (1906, 1911, 1920, 1922) 1 MVC (1909) William Winston Roper (August 22, 1880 – December 10, 1933) was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach.

He served as the head football coach at the Virginia Military Institute (1903–1904), Princeton University (1906–1908, 1910–1911, 1919–1930), the University of Missouri (1909), and Swarthmore College (1915–1916), compiling a career college football record of 112–38–18. Roper's Princeton Tigers football teams of 1906, 1911, 1920, and 1922 have been recognized as national champions, and his 89 wins are the most of any coach in the history of the program.

Roper was also the head basketball coach at Princeton for one season in 1902–03, tallying a mark of 8–7. Roper played football as an end, basketball, and baseball as an outfielder at Princeton, from which he graduated in 1902. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951.

Roper served on the NCAA Football Rules Committee.

Early life and playing career

Roper was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 22, 1880. He attended the William Penn Charter School where he played football, basketball, and baseball, and continued all three sports in college at Princeton University.

Coaching career

VMI

Roper was the sixth head football coach at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia, serving for two seasons, from 1903 to 1904, and compiling a record of 5–6. Roper had planned to study medicine, but was unable to, for health reasons. While a coach at VMI, he studied law, and later in life he became qualified as an attorney.

Princeton

In 1906, Roper was the head coach at Princeton and held that position through the 1908 season. During his first stint as the head coach at Princeton, he compiled a 21–4–4 record.

Missouri

Roper coached football at the University of Missouri for the 1909 season, where his team went 7–0–1 and won the Missouri Valley Conference title.

Return to Princeton

His second stint at Princeton lasted from 1910 to 1911. During that tenure, he compiled a 15–1–2 record.

Swarthmore

In 1915 and 1916, Roper coached at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. In his two seasons at Swarthmore, the team compiled a record of 11–4–1.

Third term at Princeton

In his final stint at Princeton, Roper held his longest-tenured coaching position. His term lasted from 1919 to 1930, but ended due to an illness. He continues to hold the record for most wins by a Princeton coach.

William Winston Roper Trophy

Princeton University's highest honor for a male athlete, the William Winston Roper Trophy, is named in his honor and awarded annually. Some of the more recent honorees have included NFL football player Dennis Norman (’01), lacrosse player Ryan Boyle (‘04), Olympic and world champion fencer Soren Thompson (‘05), MLB baseball player Will Venable (‘05), squash player Yasser El Halaby ('06), and lacrosse player Peter Trombino ('07).

Political and business career

In 1912, United States President Woodrow Wilson appointed Roper as the appraiser of merchandise at the Port of Philadelphia. He was later a member of the Philadelphia City Council and the local manager of the Prudential Insurance Company. As a politician, he worked successfully to repeal prohibition, though he himself was a teetotaller, and to change Pennsylvania's blue laws, which did not allow sports on Sundays.

Head coaching record

Football

References

(December 11, 1933). "Bill Roper Is Dead". [[The New York Times]].
"Awards". Princeton Varsity Club.
"William Winston Roper Trophy". Princeton Varsity Club.
(December 11, 1933). "Bill Roper Dies at 53". [[The Pittsburgh Press]].

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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