Ernest Lowell "Dick" Romney (February 12, 1895 – February 5, 1969) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and baseball player and coach,

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

athlete, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach and

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and ...

at the Agricultural College of Utah, now

Utah State University Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah's ...

, from 1918 to 1949, compiling a career

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

record of 128–91–16. Romney was also the head basketball coach at Utah Agricultural from 1919 to 1941, tallying a

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

mark of 224–158. He served as the commissioner of the

Skyline Conference The Skyline Conference is a college athletic conference based in the New York City area that competes in the NCAA's Division III. The league was originally chartered on May 16, 1989, as a men's basketball conference and now sponsors 17 sports (ni ...

from 1949 to 1960. Romney was inducted into the

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

as a coach in 1954 and was elected to the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his ownership ...

and Hall of Fame as a football coach in 1958.

Early life, family, and playing career

Romney was born in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

to George Romney and Hannah Ottinger Romney. "Dick" was a nickname to given him by his mother. He married Elizabeth ("Beth") Horlick of Salt Lake City in 1917. He graduated from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

where he lettered in football (playing as a running back), basketball, baseball, and track. He was a member of the A.A.U. national championship basketball team of 1916. In 1916, he was chosen by the Helms Foundation as an All-American Collegiate and A.A.U. Basketball player. As a member of the U.S. Army's 362nd Infantry, Romney played halfback for the Fort Lewis football team, scoring the only touchdown in a loss to

Mare Island Mare Island (Spanish: ''Isla de la Yegua'') is a peninsula in the United States in the city of Vallejo, California, about northeast of San Francisco. The Napa River forms its eastern side as it enters the Carquinez Strait juncture with the eas ...

's team in the wartime

1918 Rose Bowl The 1918 Rose Bowl, known at the time as the Tournament East-West Football Game, was a bowl game played on January 1, 1918, at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California. It was the 4th Rose Bowl Game. With America at war, the game was played with p ...

. Romney's brothers— G. Ottinger "Ott" Romney, W. W. "Woody" Romney, Milton "Mitt" Romney and Floyd Romney—were all gifted athletes and four were coaches. Ott coached the champion 'Golden Bobcats' (Basketball, 1928) at Montana State Agricultural College, now Montana State University, Bozeman. Floyd played football for Ott at Montana State, and went on to a long coaching career at East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mitt played college football at

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

as a quarterback and later coached at

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

and for the

Racine Cardinals The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons. Roots ca ...

. From 1925 to 1928, Mitt was a quarterback for the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

of the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

. Mitt Romney is a

first cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, " ...

to former Governor George Romney of

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, and his son,

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, was named for him.

Coaching career

Between 1925 and 1948, Romney organized and operated a summer school for football and basketball coaches that he ran in

Logan, Utah Logan is a city in Cache County, Utah, United States. The 2020 census recorded the population was 52,778. Logan is the county seat of Cache County and the principal city of the Logan metropolitan area, which includes Cache County and Franklin ...

. Noteworthy football speakers included Knute Rockne, Pop Warner, "Pappy" Waldorf, "Fritz" Kreisler, Clark Schaunnessy and Henry Frankel. Basketball greats presented at Romney's clinics.

Later years and honors

A new football stadium built in 1968 (replacing an earlier facility built in 1927, also named for him) at

was renamed

Romney Stadium Maverik Stadium, also known as Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium, is an outdoor college football stadium in the western United States, on the campus of Utah State University in Logan, Utah. The home field of the Utah State Aggies of the Moun ...

. Romney Stadium honored the Hall of Fame coach from 1969 to 2015, when it was renamed for a corporate sponsor. On February 5, 1969, Romney died from a heart attack at his home in

, one week before his 74th birthday, at the age of 73.

Head coaching record

Football

Basketball

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Romney, Dick 1895 births 1969 deaths American men's basketball players Mountain States Conference commissioners Utah State Aggies athletic directors Utah State Aggies football coaches Utah State Aggies men's basketball coaches Utah Utes baseball players Utah Utes football players Utah Utes men's basketball players All-American college men's basketball players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Sportspeople from Salt Lake City Coaches of American football from Utah Players of American football from Salt Lake City Basketball coaches from Utah Basketball players from Salt Lake City Baseball players from Salt Lake City Romney family