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In the early years, UNH football was front-page news in The New Hampshire, even if the news wasn't always good. By 1915, however, the news would start to get better with the hiring of a charismatic Kansan by the name of William "Butch" Cowell, who became athletics director and the full-time football coach. "Cowell has been called the father of UNH football for a good reason," says Marty Scarano, UNH athletics director. "He elevated football, but also other sports on campus."

Chin set, head lowered, mouth closed, eyes intense, Cowell always seemed to be wearing his game face. He was also a man of considerable pride. After Tufts skunked UNH 39-0 in 1927, Cowell disinvited the rival coach (a good friend) from a long-planned hunting trip, snapping, "Go shoot your own ducks. And what's more—clean 'em and cook 'em."

But Cowell was an innovator and a winner. In 1917, he led the college to its first winning season—23 years in the waiting. In the early 1920s, he introduced lacrosse to UNH as a means of off-season conditioning for his football players. He got the idea from Penn State's coach, Hugo Bezdeck, and had star players such as Ernie Christensen '23 and Carl Lundholm '21 learn to play so they could teach it to their teammates.

In the 24 years before Cowell retired in 1939, UNH played some of the strongest teams in the country. It was not uncommon to see teams such as Harvard, Yale, Brown, Holy Cross and Army land on the UNH schedule. UNH athletics reached another milestone during the Cowell years when it jettisoned the "Aggie" moniker and replaced it with the feisty "Wildcats." Three of an ill-fated string of live bobcats used as mascots at games—Butch I, II and III—were named in honor of the great coach before live mascots were discontinued out of concern for their welfare.

By the 1940s, football players were campus heroes and the games were major weekend events. The Homecoming game of 1940 found UNH trailing archrival Maine 14-0 with eight minutes to go. In the days of grind-it-out football, which featured lots of running and few touchdowns, a 14-0 deficit was not easily made up. The Wildcats' coach was George Sauer, one of the first to have his players study slow-motion film footage of their games, which was shot from a makeshift platform on an old windmill. Winslow MacDonald '42 was on the field that day as quarterback and cornerback.

"Coach Sauer decided that it was time to throw the ball," says MacDonald. "I remember passing the ball more than I had all year and hearing my friends from Kappa Sigma making quite a scene up in the grandstand. We scored 20 points in less than eight minutes. It was the only time I got to be carried off the field by my classmates." The Manchester Union-Leader recorded a scene in which Cowell Stadium "disgorged throngs of jubilant students, alumni, and guests who shouted and whooped their unexpected joy down the tree-shaded streets."

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