Harold Wade Lahar (July 14, 1919 – October 20, 2003) 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 wi ...

player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Colgate University (1952–1956, 1962–1967) and the University of Houston (1957–1961). Lahar was born in Durant, Oklahoma and attended Central High School in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

. He later was an All- Big Six Conference guard for the Oklahoma Sooners under coach Tom Stidham. Lahar was selected 79th overall in the 1941 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears, where he spent the

1941 NFL season The 1941 NFL season was the 22nd regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, Elmer Layden was named the first Commissioner of the NFL, while Carl Storck resigned as league president. Layden also took on the duties of p ...

before serving in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

in the South Pacific during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. After leaving the service as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in 1945, Lahar played for the Buffalo Bills of the All-America Football Conference from 1946 to 1948 before beginning his college coaching career as an assistant under

Otis Douglas Otis Whitfield Douglas Jr. (July 25, 1911 – March 21, 1989) was an American gridiron football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of Akron (1941–1942), Drexel University (1949), and the University of Arkans ...

at the University of Arkansas in 1950. In 1952, he became the 25th head coach at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. In 1957, he succeeded Bill Meek at the University of Houston, where he spent five years, before returning to Colgate in 1962, making him the first man to return to a Division I head-coaching job after leaving for another school.Colgate Raiders News
"Harold Lahar, Former Colgate Coach-Athletic Director Dies" Following the 1967 season, Lahar retired from coaching and served as athletic director at Colgate. His overall coaching record at Colgate was 53–40–8. Lahar was also assistant commissioner of the Southwest Conference. He worked at the now-defunct SWC from 1973 until his retirement in 1983. Upon his death in 2003, Lahar was buried in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lahar, Hal 1919 births 2003 deaths American football guards Arkansas Razorbacks football coaches Buffalo Bills (AAFC) players Chicago Bears players Colgate Raiders athletic directors Colgate Raiders football coaches Houston Cougars football coaches Oklahoma Sooners football players United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy officers People from Durant, Oklahoma Southwest Conference