HALL OF FAME WEBSTER CITY FOOTBALL COACH BOB HOWARD stands at Lynx Field before a football season. (DFJ file photo by Troy Banning)

For 15 seasons, I had the equivalent of a front row seat to watch Jimi Hendrix play the guitar. I was in the jury box, just a few feet away from Colonel Nathan R. Jessup as he bellowed, “You can’t handle the truth!”

Is that hyperbole? You may think so, but I don’t.

Hendrix was a genius. Jack Nicholson in that iconic role in the movie A Few Good Men was a cinematic genius.

And when it comes to coaching the game of football, Bob Howard is a genius.

Every fall Friday night, from 2007 through my final football campaign at the Daily Freeman-Journal in 2021, I was within earshot of Howard at pretty much all times as he stalked the Webster City sideline en route to a mountain of victories and playoff appearances, including that memorable excursion to the Class 3A state championship game in 2016 that, if I’m being honest, still chokes me up as the memories flood to the surface.

It. Was. Genius.

All of it.

The numbers Howard compiled during his 47-year coaching career at three stops have been chronicled plenty of times. Fifth all-time in state history with 372 wins, 30 total playoff appearances, three state championships, and more all-state players than one person could count on their fingers and toes.

The statistics alone place him in the Mount Rushmore of Iowa high school football coaches conversation. And yet the numbers are only a small sliver of his story. For me anyway.

As a reporter, was he always easy to interact with? Nope, not at all. Building trust with him is an arduous task, and it doesn’t happen overnight. But I got there eventually, to the point where, in early August of 2019, as I was chatting with him about the upcoming season, an idea popped into my mind.

Hey coach, I started, are you up for trying something a little different? Let’s just lay it all on the table, I said. Let’s talk about all of the subjects that most people are afraid to talk to you about. Let’s be unscripted and unfiltered.

I’ll always remember how he cocked his head slightly and gave me a grin. He trusted me enough to tell that story, and I’ll forever be grateful. It’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever written for a number of reasons, but at the top of that list is because I had earned that trust from him.

We delved into so many topics on that August day. His personality traits, his borderline manic love affair with football, and how the game that has come to define him has both given him so much and denied him so much.

I’m sure there were parts of that story he really liked, but also sections that made him cringe. So rarely are any of us willing to truly let down our guard for the entire world to see and yet, in that moment in time, he did exactly that. The result was, hopefully, giving everyone a better understanding of him as a football coach and as a human being.

It’s a side of him that his many players got to see over the years. Howard has always had special relationships with his players because he doesn’t hide anything from them. And he protects them at all costs. Criticize him, be angry at him, hate him if you must. But leave his players alone. That’s been his mantra, and it’s why so many of those players would do anything he asked. If Howard believed they could do it, then you know what? They believed it too.

He never asked anything of his players that he wasn’t willing to do himself. Weight training, speed training, mental training — rain, snow, or shine, he was there for every single one of those sessions alongside his players.

That’s what he demanded of himself. If he wasn’t willing to put in the work, why would he expect his players to do it? Heck, the man is part cyborg at this point — he’s had two hip replacements, a shoulder replacement and a neck fusion — and yet he always scheduled those serious procedures over a holiday break. Why? So he wouldn’t miss any of the offseason training sessions with his players.

Stop and let those last two sentences marinate for a moment. And then ask yourself this: Have you ever been that committed to your profession? I find it hard to believe there are many people who can match it.

That commitment and passion for his players and for the game were rivaled only by his talent as a coach. So many times over the years, his Webster City teams were over-matched when it came to depth and talent. And more times than not, the Lynx won because Howard ran circles around his counterpart on the other side of the field. He’ll tell you players win games, not coaches. But coaches put players in position to succeed, and there’s no one that did it better than Howard.

What’s next for Howard? When I called him Thursday afternoon, it took him less than 30 seconds to mention that he wasn’t retiring necessarily. He’s not ready to say this is goodbye. It’s more like see you later.

Will he coach again? There’s only one person who can answer that question, but in the present he says he needs a break. He’s always looked forward, never back, but now he’ll have a chance to take a deep breath and reflect.

There will be more time to spend with his family and four grandchildren. There will be more time to fish. He won’t have to live at the school the way he essentially has for nearly 50 years.

That both excites and terrifies him.

And if the day comes a year or two from now where he wants to coach again, any school in the state would be a fool to turn him down.

Geniuses just don’t come along very often.

Troy Banning served as the DFJ Sports Editor from 1999-2021. He is now the director of community engagement for the Gilbert Community School District.