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S. L. Mains

American football coach (1865-1934)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ7387631 ↗
Source-derived summary

Seward Lincoln "Suey" Mains Sr.[n1] (March 31, 1865 – February 9, 1934) was an American college football player and coach.

Mains was born in Danville, Iowa, in 1865. He attended Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, where he played college football. He played in Doane's first college football game, earned a reputation as "a great general in the field", and missed only two games in the first five years of Doane football. He was also the captain of the Doane football team for two seasons. He scored a touchdown in Doane's 12–0 victory over the 1894 Nebraska football team. He graduated from Doane in 1895. He was also the school's champion in the shot put and hammer throw.

Mains was the sixth head football coach at Doane, serving for two seasons, from 1899 to 1900, and compiling a record of 4–2.

In October 1893, Mains was married to Laura Patton of Ashland, Nebraska.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “S. L. Mains” is american football coach (1865-1934). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mains, American and football, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1865, 1934, 1894, 1895—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1865-03-31. For this dossier, Mains, American and football is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american football coach (1865-1934)” 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

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7387631. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1865, 1934, 1894 and 1895.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “S. L. Mains” 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.