Hartman Howell carries on dad’s UGA legacy

by Murray Poole

Bill Hartman, Jr. is truly one of the iconic
figures in the University of Georgia’s football history.

Out of Thomaston, Ga., Hartman earned
All-America honors as a Georgia fullback in 1937
when he served as captain of the Bulldogs. He
then played two seasons with the Washington
Redskins and in 1938, while filling in for Redskins
tailback Sammy Baugh, Hartman completed
13 consecutive passes against Brooklyn.

Hartman returned to UGA in 1939 to serve
as the Bulldogs’ backfield coach under head
coach Wally Butts and served in that capacity
until 1956. Continuing his contributions to his
alma mater, Hartman then was asked by head
coach Vince Dooley in 1970 to serve as the Bulldogs’
volunteer kicking coach, which he happily
did until his retirement in 1994. The last years of
his volunteer status, of course, came under then
head coach Ray Goff.

Bill Hartman was inducted into the State of
Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in 1981 and the
UGA Circle of Honor in 1999. And in 1984
came Hartman’s biggest honor, that of being inducted
into the National College Football Hall
of Fame.

So Hartman’s contribution to the Bulldog
football program is immeasurable and it seems
most appropriate and fitting that his legacy is
being carried on today around Georgia athletics
by his daughter, Barbara Hartman Howell, who
works in the Butts-Mehre Building as UGA Assistant
Director of Development.

Howell works with annual giving and annual
gifts to the athletic program and is also considered
a goodwill ambassador who works
toward forming a closer relationship between the
UGA Athletic Association and its donors and also
the association’s peers on campus and in the
Athens community.

“I’ve been in various capacities with the
Georgia Bulldog Club since 1986 when daddy
was chairman,” said Howell. “It was then the
Georgia Student Education Fund and was under
the Georgia Bulldog Club and was the annual
fund for football tickets’ priority. It’s gone through
several name changes since. But dad was chairman
right up until his death in 2006.”

Again appropriately, the name of the UGA
annual gift-giving fund is the William C. Hartman,
Jr. Fund. “Not only does it include ticket
priority but also major gifts … if someone wants
to endow a scholarship or give money toward
the athletic general endowment fund,” noted
Howell. “But it’s all under the Georgia Bulldog
Club.”

Howell has wonderful memories of her father
and his many years of guiding young athletes
on the Georgia campus.

“Daddy played at Georgia from 1934 to
1937, was captain of the ’37 team and not only
played in the backfield but was their punter
also,” she said. “After he graduated in 1937, he
played those two years for the Redskins before
Coach Butts called him and asked daddy to
come back and be his backfield coach. Daddy
admired Coach Butts so much and actually
played for him at Georgia Military College before
he played at Georgia. Daddy really loved
Athens and in the NFL in the late 1930s, you
didn’t make a lot of money like they make today.

So he returned to Georgia as Coach Butts’ backfield
coach and was fortunate to coach Frank
Sinkwich and Charley Trippi. They led Georgia
to its first SEC championship, the Rose and
Sugar Bowls and the eventual National Championship
in 1942,” she recalled.

Howell said she can’t remember just everything
her dad told her about Sinkwich – the Bulldogs’
1942 Heisman Trophy winner – and the
legendary Trippi, who still resides in Athens
today and is universally regarded as Georgia’s
greatest ever all-around football player.
“I just know daddy thought, along with
everybody else, that those two were just amazing
backs and that, other than Herschel, he thought
Trippi and Sinkwich were the best to ever play at
Georgia,” Howell said.

Howell noted that after her dad retired from
Butts’ coaching staff in 1956, he went into the
life insurance business. “I remember daddy said
he got away from coaching in order to spend
more time with his family,” she said. “And he had
a very successful career in life insurance but
when Coach Dooley was hired, he asked daddy
to come back and coach the kickers … since
daddy had been a punter also. Daddy served as
a volunteer coach at that time and he coached
the Georgia kickers until he was 75 when the
NCAA said a school couldn’t have a volunteer
coach. So,” Howell recalled, “at the age of 75
daddy enrolled at Georgia and went back to
school for two years in the Terry College of Business.

He did that so he could be a graduate assistant
and still coach the Georgia kickers. He did
that for two more years before retiring at 77 years
old.”

Howell pointed out that Bill Hartman not
only tutored the Bulldog punters during his years
as a volunteer and graduate assistant coach but
also the Georgia placekickers as well.

“He had some great kickers during that
time … Kevin Butler, Allan Leavitt, John Kasay,
Todd Peterson and Rex Robinson,” she said.
“And, of course, Kevin Butler is the only kicker
to make the College Football Hall of Fame.”

Bill Hartman, Jr. passed away in 2006.
“Daddy was 12 hours from being 91 when he
died,” said Howell. “He would have been 91 on
St. Patrick’s Day. And the unusual thing was that
my mom passed away on her birthday and, as I
said, daddy was just 12 hours from his birthday
when he passed away.”

Barbara’s brother, Bill Hartman III, is also
well known in the sports world for his many
years spent in the Atlanta television market. “Bill
worked with WAGA for about 25 years and then
he went to WSB and spent from 10 to 15 years
with them, where he was the weekend sports
anchor,” she said. “Of course, he also graduated
from the UGA journalism school and he retired
about two-and-a-half years ago. For the past two
falls, Channel 5 has asked Bill to report on the
High School Game of the Week and he’s enjoyed
that a lot.”

As you would expect, Howell has season
tickets for Georgia’s football games. She loves
watching the Bulldogs play each Saturday but
also carries out her duties at the home games.
“Part of my job is to visit with our donors, especially
in the sky suites,” she informed.

And, you must know, Howell says she’s ecstatic
over the Bulldogs’ success this season …
the rebounding from the 0-2 beginning and the
now 10-3 season mark Georgia will take into its
Jan. 2 Outback Bowl matchup with Michigan
State.

“It’s really amazing,” she declared. “I’m not
sure anybody thought after going 0-2 that we’d
win 10 straight. I’m pleased and excited and just
glad to see Coach Richt do so well. He’s a wonderful
and outstanding man and a great coach.

We’ve had such success with him and I hated to
see the direction we were going the past two
years but am just ecstatic now to see it turn
around. I’m happy for Coach Richt and happy
for the team. Like everybody else, I wish we
could have won the SEC overall championship
but then, LSU is really something else … especially
that Honey Badger (Tyrann Mathieu). I
think our future is really bright and I was really
excited this past week to see us get a commitment
from Keith Marshall (nation’s top prep running
back). We had a young team this year and
I think the sky’s the limit, I really do,” said Howell.

“I’m not all that familiar with Michigan State,”
she added, referring to the Dogs’ upcoming bowl
game. “But they have the same record we do,
with 10 wins. We’ve played them twice in the
past and won both of those games and I hope we
make it three in a row, and I think we will.”

What I’m wondering today is that if every
time Georgia’s record punter, Drew Butler,
booms one high into the stratosphere, Barbara
Hartman Howell sometimes thinks of her dad,
knowing that he would have been proud of the
way Butler kicks a football, the same way he was
proud of Drew’s famous dad, Kevin, when he
performed under Bill Hartman’s watchful eye
some 28 years ago.

Tagged: barbara hartman howell, bill hartman, uga football, georgia bulldog clun