CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Harold Iddings

American college football player, professional football player, college football coach, college basketball coach (1888-1952)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ5661162
Source-derived summary

Harold Jonathan Iddings (May 16, 1885 – August 25, 1952) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball and track and field. A 1909 graduate from the University of Chicago, he served as head football coach at Miami University from 1909 to 1910, at Simpson College from 1911 to 1913, at Otterbein College in 1916, and at Penn College—now known as William Penn University—in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1921, compiling a career college football record of 16–26–1. Iddings was also the head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky (1910–1911), Simpson (1911–1914), Otterbein (1916–1917), and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (1920–1921).

College career

Iddings was an all-Big Ten Conference player at the University of Chicago in 1907 and 1908 under legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. In both years he helped the Maroons to the Big Ten title. In the 1907 and 1908 seasons the Maroons won all nine Big Ten contests and finished with an overall record of 4–1 and 5–0–1, respectively. Iddings was also the co-Big Ten champion in the pole vault in 1907. Both Iddings and Barton Haggard of Drake University reached 11’–4”.

Professional football

Iddings was a member of the Canton Bulldogs for part of the 1915 season. During this era of professional football, it was very common for players to be hired week to week.

Editorial summary

“Harold Iddings” enters the record as american college football player, professional football player, college football coach, college basketball coach (1888-1952). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harold, Iddings and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1885, 1952, 1909, 1910—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1888. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Harold, Iddings and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Harold Iddings” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Harold, Iddings and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5661162. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1885, 1952, 1909 and 1910.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Harold Iddings”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harold Iddings primary sources, Harold Iddings archive and Harold research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Harold Iddings”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Harold Iddings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.