CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Dana Howard

American football player

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 revisionJul 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ5214748 ↗
Source-derived summary

Dana Cortez Howard (born February 27, 1972) is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the St. Louis Rams and the Chicago Bears. He played college football for the Illinois Fighting Illini and was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the fifth round of the 1995 NFL draft.

Early life

Howard was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. He had an inauspicious beginning in football, being cut by his head coach in junior high.

He attended East St. Louis High School, where he played both linebacker and tight end for the Flyers high school football team coached by Bob Shannon. As a senior, he helped the school win the 6A state title, while receiving Parade All-America and All-state honors. In track he once threw the shot put 60'.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dana Howard” is american football player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dana, Howard and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 1995—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1972-02-27, 1972-02-25—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Dana, Howard and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american football player” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5214748. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972 and 1995.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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 “Dana Howard”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dana Howard primary sources, Dana Howard archive and Dana 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 “Dana Howard”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Dana Howard” 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.