Harold W. Kopp (January 19, 1909 – May 10, 1998) was an

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

coach. He served as the head football coach at the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

(BYU), and

Bentley University Bentley University is a private university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded in 1917 as a school of accounting and finance in Boston's Back Bay, Boston, Back Bay neighborhood. Bentley has one undergraduate school which off ...

, compiling a career

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

record of 51–39–6. At Rhode Island, Kopp led the Rams to three

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the a ...

titles in five seasons (two shared, one outright). When they won their first title in 1952, it was the first championship in the Rhode Island football program's history. In 1955, he led them to the program's first bowl game, the

Refrigerator Bowl The Refrigerator Bowl was an American college football bowl game played annually from 1948 until 1956 in Evansville, Indiana. The game was held at the Reitz Bowl, located at F. J. Reitz High School on the west side of Evansville. The stadium open ...

, where the Rams lost, 12–10, to Jacksonville State. As the coach of the

BYU Cougars football The BYU Cougars football team is the college football program representing Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. The Cougars began collegiate football competition in 1922, and have won 23 conference championships and one College football ...

team, Kopp produced winning records in his last two seasons, but was dismissed from the university when rumors surfaced that he had committed a potential

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

rules infraction. From 1964 to 1970 Kopp was head football coach at Waltham High School. The team went undefeated in 1965. Kopp was also the first-ever head coach for the Bentley Falcons football program when he took the reins in 1972. He coached there for four seasons. Kopp was author of a book titled ''I've Seen It All''. He died on May 10, 1998.

Head coaching record

College

References

1909 births 1998 deaths Bentley Falcons football coaches Boston University Terriers football coaches Brown Bears football coaches Harvard Crimson football coaches McDaniel Green Terror football players Northeastern Huskies football coaches Rhode Island Rams football coaches UConn Huskies football coaches Yale Bulldogs football coaches High school football coaches in Massachusetts {{1950s-collegefootball-coach-stub