World War II led to shortage of male coaches, prompting two females to lead their high school football teams.
The naming of Natalie Randolph as the head football coach at Coolidge (Washington, District of Columbia) has led to speculation that the 29-year-old is the first woman to be named the head football coach at the high school level.
However, take a trip back in time to 1943 and you'll not only find one female high school football coach, but two. And they were both named Pauline.
According to a CNN report, the Clell Wade Coaches Directory Inc. has maintained a database of high school coaches for over 50 years and the owner, Karen Wade-Hutton, had "never heard of a female head coach at a high school football team."
However, times were different during World War II. Men were off to war and some towns were left without a head football coach. In at least two cases in 1942-1943, a woman stepped in to take the helm. Since the war ended 65 years ago, it's not surprising that the names of some of these pioneering female football coaches have flown under the radar.
According to a story in Time magazine on Sept. 6, 1943, Pauline Rugh of Bell Township High School in Salina, Pa., was listed as "the prettiest football coach in the U.S." The 22-year-old physical education teacher requested the job when the school lost its head coach. A 1942 graduate of Penn State, Rugh took some lessons from then-Nittany Lion coach Bob Higgins before taking over her role as head coach of Bell Township, according to Time.
Rugh, who later married Wenroy Smith, passed away on July 3, 2009 at the age of 88, and in her obituary she is listed as the "first female high school football coach." Rugh, who also became a longtime girls basketball coach, has been inducted into two Pennsylvania sports halls of fame. One is in Westmoreland County and the other is in Allegheny Kiski Valley.
While Pauline Rugh was considered at the time to be the first female high school football coach, one year earlier, and nearly 3,000 miles away on the West Coast, another Pauline had beaten her to the honor.
Pauline Foster of Corning (Calif.) took over the reins of the Cardinal football program in 1942 when the team's coach was called off to war. The Cardinals only played three games that season (rationing cut short the football season for many teams in 1942) and finished 1-2 on the year. However, that one victory was a significant one.
Foster's squad defeated the Orland Trojans 14-0 for their only win. The Trojans were coached by Al Nichelini, who was a one-time All-American at St. Mary's under legendary coach Slip Madigan. According to a letter to the editor in Time by Foster's brother Morris Lowenthal on Oct. 4, 1943, Nichelini was quoted as saying, "I'll never live it down that a woman beat me. The sooner the Army calls me, the better..."
The Trojans got some payback later in the season when they defeated the Cardinals 7-6, and Nichelini did get his wish as the armed services came calling shortly after the completion of the 1942 season. Foster, meanwhile, never coached the football team after the 1942 season and Corning did not field a team again until the 1945 season.
Undoubtedly there were many more woman who were called upon to coach high school football during the World War II era (Frankie Long Robertson reportedly coached the football team and both the men's and women's basketball teams at Sulphur Bluff High School in Texas in 1942, according to a message board post to the PennStater Alumni Magazine dated Feb. 28, 2010), but their names have been lost to the dustbin of history.
So while Randolph might not necessarily be the first female head football coach, she is definitely the latest to be added to a very short list.
