Bill Roper (American football)


William Winston Roper was an American football, basketball, and baseball player and coach. He served as the head football coach at the Virginia Military Institute, Princeton University, the University of Missouri, and Swarthmore College, compiling a career college football record of 112–38–18. Roper's Princeton Tigers football teams of 1906, 1911, 1920, and 1922 have been recognized as national champions. His 89 wins are the most of any coach in the history of the program. Roper was also the head basketball coach at Princeton for one season in 1902–03, tallying a mark of 8–7. Roper played football as an end, basketball, and baseball as an outfielder at Princeton, from which he graduated in 1902. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951.
Roper served on the NCAA Football Rules Committee.

Early life and playing career

Roper was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 22, 1880. He attended the William Penn Charter School where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He continued all three sports in college at Princeton University.

Coaching career

Virginia Military Institute

Roper was the sixth head football coach for the Virginia Military Institute Keydets located in Lexington, Virginia and he held that position for two seasons, from 1903 until 1904. His coaching record at VMI was 5–6.
Roper had planned to study medicine, but was unable to, for health reasons. While a coach at Virginia, he studied law, and later in life he became qualified as an attorney.

Princeton

In 1906, Roper was the head coach at Princeton and held that position through the 1908 season. During his first stint as the head coach at Princeton, he compiled a 21–4–4 record.

Missouri

Roper coached football at the University of Missouri for the 1909 season, where his team went 7–0–1 and won the Missouri Valley Conference title.

Return to Princeton

His second stint at Princeton lasted from 1910 to 1911. During that tenure, he compiled a 15–1–2 record.

Swarthmore

In 1915 and 1916, Roper coached at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. In his two seasons at Swarthmore, the team compiled a record of 11–4–1.

Third term at Princeton

In his final stint at Princeton, Roper held his longest-tenured coaching position. His term lasted from 1919 to 1930, but ended due to an illness. He continues to hold the record for most wins by a Princeton coach.

William Winston Roper Trophy

Princeton University's highest honor for a male athlete, the William Winston Roper Trophy, is named in his honor and awarded annually. Some of the more recent honorees have included NFL football player Dennis Norman, NHL hockey player Cameron Atkinson, lacrosse player Ryan Boyle, Olympic and world champion fencer Soren Thompson, MLB baseball player Will Venable, squash player Yasser El Halaby, and lacrosse player Peter Trombino.

Political and business career

In 1912, United States President Woodrow Wilson appointed Roper as the appraiser of merchandise at the Port of Philadelphia. He was later a member of the Philadelphia City Council and the local manager of the Prudential Insurance Company. As a politician he worked successfully to repeal prohibition, though he himself was a teetotaller, and to change Pennsylvania's blue laws, which did not allow sports on Sundays.

Head coaching record

Football