Florida Atlantic University will hold its long-awaited celebration of life for legendary football coach Howard Schnellenberger on Sept. 10 at the FAU Stadium in Boca Raton.
Mr. Schnellenberger, whose accomplishments included coaching the University of Miami to its first national championship in 1983 and founding the FAU football program in 1998, died after a lengthy illness on March 27 at age 87.Mr. Schnellenberger was an All-America tight end under Bear Bryant at Alabama, played briefly in the Canadian Football League and then started his coaching career at Kentucky. Among his other stops in six decades of coaching was under Don Shula with the Miami Dolphins, where the two played integral roles in the 1972 Dolphins’ becoming the only team in NFL history to go undefeated.
Mr. Schnellenberger built the FAU program from scratch and served as head coach from 2001-11.
Along the way he recruited Joe Namath to play at Alabama and coached dozens of other notable players, including Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde at Miami.
A number of former players and coaches are expected, but a full list won’t be available until later in August.
The event will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. and is free to the public.
— Brian Biggane
Comments