Robert Gilmour Dobie was an American football coach. His great teams and numerous All-American players were Eddie Kaw and George Pfann of Cornell. Dobie left a unique record.
Background
Dobie was born on January 31, 1878, in Hastings, Minnesota. He was the first son and third of four children of Robert Dobie, a well driller, and Ellen (Black) Dobie. He was probably named Robert Gilmour, but never used a first initial, though in news reports he was often erroneously called "J. Gilmour Dobie. " Both parents had come to the United States in the early 1870's from Scotland. Dobie's mother died in 1882. His father remarried but died soon afterward, and Dobie, who was never close to his stepmother, left home as soon as he could support himself.
Education
Dobie played football at the Hastings high school and at the University of Minnesota, which he entered in 1899. As varsity left end in his freshman year and first-string quarterback in his sophomore and junior years, he made an impressive record, the 1900 team being undefeated. He was light in weight but was known as a "ferocious" tackler. During early 1900s Dobie studied law at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1904. He was admitted to the bar, but apparently never practiced.
Career
Dobie began his coaching career in 1902. For the next four years he was assistant to Dr. Henry L. Williams, Minnesota's football coach. In 1905 he also coached Minneapolis' South Side High Schoolto a state championship. Dobie's appointment in 1906 as director of athletics and coach of all sports at North Dakota Agricultural College in Fargo marked the beginning of one of the most unusual coaching achievements in American collegiate history. For two years his football team was undefeated, and he maintained the same record as football coach at the University of Washington from 1908 through 1916, winning fifty-eight victories and gaining three ties and keeping his opponents scoreless in forty-two of the sixty-one games. For three seasons (1917-1919) Dobie was football coach at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. His teams won seventeen games and lost three. Navy's opponents were held scoreless in eleven games, and none scored more than a single touchdown.
In 1920 he was called to Cornell University, where he was to remain for sixteen years. As a coach, Dobie was not a creative innovator, but rather a perfectionist who demanded player dedication and extensive drill on fundamentals. He stressed power and timing, with precise coordination. The "off-tackle" play was his favorite, and his teams used the forward pass and deception only enough to keep the opposition "honest. " Yet he sometimes surprised an opponent with a strong passing attack.
Dobie always emphasized defense and prepared his teams carefully for each opposing team. At least through his first quarter-century of coaching, he seems to have earned and retained the loyalty as well as the respect of his players. His great teams and numerous All-American players, especially Eddie Kaw and George Pfann of Cornell, earned him national attention.
At Cornell, Dobie at first continued his amazing success. Reviving a lagging football program, he coached undefeated teams in 1921, 1922, and 1923. Gradually, however, Cornell's athletic prowess began to decline. Despite pressure from alumni, Dobie refused to engage in the aggressive recruiting of other college coaches; the depression and a rigid admissions policy hurt the athletic programs; undergraduates became more indifferent to sports; and losing seasons became more frequent.
A hard taskmaster with a poor sense of public relations, Dobie came in for his share of the blame. His constant pessimism about his teams' prospects, which earned him the sobriquet "Gloomy Gil, " was regarded by some as adversely affecting player morale. In 1935 Cornell unified control of intercollegiate and intramural athletics under a director of athletics and physical education, and after another losing season, Dobie resigned in 1936. He spent the next three years at Boston College, with moderate success, and in 1939 retired from coaching. His devotion to football found expression in numerous magazine articles, many for the American Boy, and he taught for several summers in the football clinic at the University of Illinois.
Achievements
Religion
Dobie was active in fraternal and Presbyterian church activities.
Membership
A charter member of the Football Coaches Association, Dobie became one of its trustees in 1924 and its president in 1928.
Personality
Tall and lean, Dobie was known to friends as a rather shy man with a quiet sense of humor, one who was well read and could be a fascinating conversationalist, a hard-driving coach who yet accepted the importance of the academic, a citizen deeply concerned about the problems and the issues of his day.
Connections
On January 2, 1918, Dobie married Eva M. Butler of Seattle. They had three children. Mrs. Dobie died in 1927. In his last years Dobie made his home in Putnam, Connecticut, near his son.