D. John Markey - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

In his youth, Markey played sandlot football for several years in his native Frederick. During his service in the First Maryland Infantry Regiment, he played as a reserve halfback on the unit's football team, which featured former players from several Eastern colleges including Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale. In 1900, he served as an assistant football coach at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), where he also played as a halfback. In 1902, the Maryland Agricultural College (now the University of Maryland) hired Markey as the first professional head coach of its football team with a salary of $300 ($8,058 adjusted for inflation). Markey reinstated a physical training regimen, which had first been implemented by Grenville Lewis in 1896, and also introduced the tackling dummy to team practices. His coaching stressed the fundamentals of blocking and tackle, and he was assisted by Emmons Dunbar, who had been mentored as a youth by legendary coach Glenn "Pop" Warner in his native Springville, New York.

Although he had not intended to play on the team as its head coach, Markey filled in for a Maryland halfback, Ed Brown, who quit after receiving a death threat from a Georgetown fan in the season-opener. Markey led Maryland to a 3–5–2 record in his first season and improved to 7–4 in 1903. In 1904, after the school refused him a salary increase, he coached only part-time. Markey commuted from Frederick twice a week to coach the team, while chemistry professor Buck Wharton was responsible for coaching duties the other four days. After the team posted a 2–4–2 record that season, Markey and the school ended their arrangement by mutual consent, and he was replaced as coach by State Department lawyer Fred K. Nielsen. During his tenure at Maryland from 1902 to 1904, Markey compiled a 12–13–4 record.