THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310561
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: 66 lines
When his admirers gathered for James A. Howard's funeral last week, the tributes could have gone on and on. But some who attended say it was a modest farewell, suited to a man whose quiet influence on the sports landscape from Chapel Hill to Hampton Roads was felt for half a century.
``He wouldn't have wanted (a eulogy),'' said Donald Griffin, former Granby High School principal and Howard's longtime friend. ``He was so self-effacing you wouldn't believe it. He just wanted to be anonymous. But he worked like a dog.''
If Howard, an attorney who died Oct. 18 at age 78, by design was not the most recognizable sportsman around, he was always among the most respected.
For starters, Howard, a Norfolk native who attended Maury High School, was an Oyster Bowl fixture, lining up opponents for that annual college football game for as long as anybody can remember.
The Oyster Bowl, held by the Shriners at Old Dominion's Foreman Field, endured 49 years until economics drove it from existence following last season's game.
As much of a bulldog as Howard was and as strongly as he felt for the recipients of the game's proceeds - crippled children - the inevitable demise of the game hurt him, said his wife, Ellen.
But he was enough of a bottom-line realist, Ellen Howard said, to know that the game's time had come. And Howard knew about time, as generously as he invested his, and his money, in the people and places he cared about.
One was the University of North Carolina, where Howard was co-captain of the 1941 basketball team with Tar Heel great George Glamack. Another was Duke University, whose law school Howard worked his way through as a Southern Conference football referee.
Through the years, the Howards often opened their Lakewood home to alumni from both schools, even hosting coaches Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski on occasion.
A third beneficiary was Old Dominion, which conceived and built its field house under Howard's guidance as a member of ODU's board of visitors. And where, it can be said, Howard is a father of the athletic program, so instrumental was he in the mid-'60s in founding ODU's Intercollegiate Foundation, which funds Monarch sports.
``He was a real player in those days,'' ODU athletic director Jim Jarrett said. ``At that time, it was a young university, and there were few Old Dominion people in financial or political position to really help the university.
``Old Dominion has been able to move to the stature it has today because of those people who really believed in having a major university and athletic program in Hampton Roads. He was one of those guys.''
Not that the public, or even Ellen, ever really knew the lengths to which Howard served.
``He did a lot of fine things, but the moment someone came to him about some publicity, he was gone,'' Griffin said.
Recalled Ellen Howard: ``The year he got the Norfolk Sports Club's sportsman of the year (1977), the person in charge called and said, `Ellen, Jim's nominated for sportsman of the year, but I don't know what he's done. Can you tell me?' I said, `I'm sorry, I can't help you at all.' ''
This we know about Jimmy Howard; he was a lieutenant commander in the Navy in World War II; an avid golfer; an impeccably prepared lawyer; a president of the Virginia State bar; a father of three; a grandfather of four.
A friend and sportsman whom Hampton Roads will miss. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
James A. Howard
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB