G. Herbert McCracken, Coach 1921-23
McCracken was a football coach at Allegheny from 1921 through 1923. He was a 1921 graduate from the University of Pittsburgh where he earned three letters in football, three letters in basketball, and one letter in swimming and served as captain of the basketball team his senior year. McCracken began his coaching career at Allegheny totaling a 16-8-1 mark in three years.
As Allegheny’s 16th head football coach, McCracken led the Blue and Gold to a 3-4-1 record in 1921, guided the Gators to a 6-3 mark in 1922, and piloted the record for most victories set in 1899 and tied also in 1902 and 1913. (This record has also been tied twice since, in 1968 and in 1974, but has not yet been surpassed).
McCracken then went on to coach football at Lafayette College from 1924 through 1935. It was at Lafayette, in 1924, that McCracken was credited with devising the huddle in football.
McCracken had been informed that the opposing team, University of Pennsylvania, had scouted his Lafayette squad so well for the upcoming contest between the two schools that the Penn squad knew all the plays and all the signals used by McCracken’s crew.
With this information in mind, McCracken sought a remedy which would conceal Lafayette’s signals (before the huddle came into practice teams called their plays at the line of scrimmage) and therefore return the fairness to the contest.
That afternoon as the team took the field, McCracken explained to the officials what they could expect to see. Then, before each Lafayette offensive down, the team went back into a huddle to call the play, using ambiguous signals on the line just to time the snap of the ball.
The Penn team won that game 7-3, but even though teams on their own practice fields would utilize the huddle, no one before thought to use it in a contest with another school. McCracken became widely recognized as an outstanding coach as well as the inventor of the football huddle.
As a Pitt football player, McCracken played four backfield positions and two end positions on offense and numerous positions on defense. He often played three different offensive positions in one game and was referred to by his Coach Glenn S. “Pop” Warner as “the best all-purpose player I have ever coached.”
McCracken was also the co-founder of Scholastic Magazines, Inc., which came into existence in 1922, and he founded Scholastic Coach Magazine in 1931.
In 1935 he gave up coaching, which then was a three-month-per year job, to devote full time to publishing. He retired but remained chairman of the executive committee of Scholastic Magazines, Inc.
In 1972, McCracken was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. He received honorary degrees from Allegheny College, Bethany College, and Lafayette College. McCracken, who is a past national president of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, is also listed in “Who’s Who.”
