Stanley Bingham Cofall (May 5, 1894 – September 21, 1961) 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 ...

player and coach.

Early life

Cofall was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

to Fred and Ida Bingham Cofall. In 1910 he played football at

East Technical High School East Technical High School or East Tech is a secondary school under the operation of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Cleveland, Ohio. History The school, when it opened on October 5, 1908, was the first public trade school in the cit ...

. He then moved to East High School where he became all-scholastic in football and

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

Notre Dame

Cofall attended the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

where he played halfback. Cofall was prohibited from playing on the varsity team during the 1913 season due to the new freshmen eligibility rules, so he played in the University's own residence hall intramural system, known colloquially as "interhall", and was selected for the All-Interhall team as a left halfback from

Sorin Hall Sorin Hall, also known as Sorin College, is the oldest of the 32 Residence Halls on the campus of the University of Notre Dame and one of the 16 male dorms. It is named after Edward Sorin, the founder of Notre Dame. Sorin is located directly nor ...

. In 1914, Cofall's first year with the Irish varsity team, he scored 9

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

s, and led the team with 82 points. The following year, Cofall scored 9 touchdowns and again led the team with 71 points. After scoring 12 touchdowns and 84 points in 1916, he was named to several All-American teams. Stan also served as the team's captain that year.

Professional football

After graduation in 1917 he served as a

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

with the professional

Massillon Tigers The Massillon Tigers were an early professional football team from Massillon, Ohio. Playing in the "Ohio League", the team was a rival to the pre-National Football League version of the Canton Bulldogs. The Tigers won Ohio League championships ...

. His football career went on hiatus from 1918 to 1919, while serving in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After the war, Cofall helped organize the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...

football team, and the following year he and owner

Jimmy O'Donnell James M. O'Donnell (November 3, 1872 - October 1, 1947) was the owner and co-founder of the first National Football League (then called the American Professional Football Association) franchise in Cleveland, called the Cleveland Tigers. He was a ...

traveled to

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio. It is located approximately south of Cleveland and south of Akron in Northeast Ohio. The city lies on the edge of Ohio's extensive Amish country, particularly in Holmes and ...

, and attended a meeting where the

American Professional Football Association 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 maj ...

(later named the

National Football League 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 ...

) was organized. At the meeting Cofall was named as the league's first vice president. In 1921 he played one game with the short-lived

New York Brickley Giants The New York Giants (informally known as Brickley's Giants and Brickley's New York Giants) were a professional American football team with the American Professional Football Association (now the National Football League) whose only season played ...

. In 1920 Cofall played for the

Union Club of Phoenixville The Union Club of Phoenixville was a professional football team based in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The team was the result of a 1919 merger between the Phoenixville Union Club and the upstart Phoenix Athletic Club. From 1907 until 1919, the U ...

, an independent team, which featured many players from the

Buffalo All-Americans Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under multiple names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL-era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from ...

. He later played for

Union Quakers of Philadelphia The Union Quakers of Philadelphia were a professional independent football team, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1921. The team evolved from a number of pro players who played with the Union Club of Phoenixville during their 1920 season. ...

, after the Phoenixville team's star player transferred to that newly created team. In 1922, he signed on to play with the, then-independent,

Pottsville Maroons The Pottsville Maroons were an American football team based in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in the northeastern part of the state. Founded in 1920, they played in the National Football League (NFL) from 1925 to 1928. In 1929 they relocated to Boston ...

. There he helped the Maroons become the top team in the

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

coal region. In 1924, Cofall helped the Maroons win the Anthracite League championship. The following year, the Maroons joined the NFL.

College coaching

Later, Cofall coached various professional and college teams. From 1925 to 1927, he was the head football coach at Loyola College in Maryland—now known as

Loyola University Maryland Loyola University Maryland is a private Jesuit university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established as Loyola College in Maryland by John Early and eight other members of the Society of Jesus in 1852, it is the ninth-oldest Jesuit college in the ...

. Cofall was the head football coach at Wake Forest College—now known as

Wake Forest University Wake Forest University is a private research university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1834, the university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina. The Reynolda Campus, the un ...

—in 1928.

After football

Cofall returned to Cleveland where he founded Stanco Oil Company in 1935. That company later merged with the National Solvent Corporation, manufacturer of greases and oils, in 1937 with Cofall as president-treasurer. Cofall continued to be active in the Cleveland sports scene. In 1942 he helped bring the Notre Dame–Navy football game to Cleveland and was a founder of the Cleveland Touchdown Club. He also served as chairman of the Cleveland Boxing Commission and the director of liquor control for the state of Ohio.

Family

Cofall was married to Irene Held, and they had three children, Jack, Stanley Jr., and Mrs. Blossom Cummings. After their divorce in 1953, he and his second wife, Louise, moved to

Peninsula, Ohio Peninsula is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States. The population was 565 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area. Peninsula is in the middle of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which provides a sou ...

. They had a child, Dan Cofall. Cofall died at home in 1962 and was buried at Union Cemetery in Peninsula. Cofall's son, Dan Cofall, graduated from Notre Dame and Southern Methodist University. Dan also hosts the daily financial talk show, "The Wall Street Shuffle", heard daily 4-6pm on CNN 1190am radio in Dallas-Ft. Worth.The Wall Street Shufflethewallstreetshuffle.com
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Head coaching record

College

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cofall, Stan 1894 births 1961 deaths Cleveland Tigers (NFL) players Cleveland Tigers-Indians coaches Holmesburg Athletic Club players Loyola Greyhounds football coaches Massillon Tigers coaches Massillon Tigers players New York Brickley Giants players Notre Dame Fighting Irish football players Pottsville Maroons (Anthracite League) players Union Club of Phoenixville players Union Quakers of Philadelphia players Youngstown Patricians players National Football League founders Wake Forest Demon Deacons football coaches High school football coaches in Pennsylvania American military personnel of World War I Sportspeople from Cleveland Players of American football from Cleveland