Benjamin Gilbert Owen (July 24, 1875 – February 26, 1970) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Washburn College, now Washburn University, in 1900, at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, from 1902 to 1904, and at the University of Oklahoma from 1905 to 1926, compiling a career college football record of 155–60–19. Owen was also the head basketball coach at Oklahoma from 1908 to 1921, tallying a mark of 113–49, and the head baseball coach at the school from 1906 to 1922, amassing a record of 142–102–4. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951.
Early life and playing career
Owen was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1875 and his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri when he was 12. After he finished school, his family again moved, this time to Arkansas City, Kansas. There Owen served as an apprentice to a local doctor for three years. He then enrolled in the University of Kansas in 1897 to pursue his medical studies and he soon discovered his knack for football.
Owen played football at Kansas under two excellent, but contrasting coaches. Wylie G. Woodruff, an All American player from the University of Pennsylvania came to Kansas to coach football in the fall of 1897. Owen got a part-time job working as a medical assistant for Woodruff and it was Woodruff who encouraged Owen to try out for the Kansas football team. Owen played under Woodruff for two seasons. Woodruff specialized in a tough, hard-hitting style of football Woodruff's message to his players was "hurdle the wounded, step on the dead." Woodruff was released at the end of the 1898 season and Kansas hired Fielding H. Yost from the University of Nebraska. Unlike, Woodruff, Yost's style of football was based on innovation, speed, and cunning. Owen was the star quarterback for Yost's undefeated 1899 team.
Coaching career
Upon graduating from Kansas, Owen took his first head coaching job at Washburn College. Following a one-year stint there, he spent the 1901 season as Yost's assistant at the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, he helped Yost develop the famous "Point-a-Minute" teams built around halfback Willie Heston.
Owen got his first exposure to the Oklahoma football team while head coach at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. His Bethany Swedes met and defeated two Sooner teams in 1903 and 1904. In the following offseason, the Western University of Pennsylvania looked to have Owen become the head coach of the Panthers. However, athletic director Vernon Louis Parrington hired Owen.
Owen took over the Oklahoma football team in 1905, succeeding one-year coach Fred Ewing. He stepped in and immediately turned the fledgling team around, giving Oklahoma its very first win over the rival Texas Longhorns. Owen was loved by the players as he regularly would involve himself in scrimmages when he felt his players were lagging. Owen's first two years at Oklahoma were spent back and forth between Norman and Arkansas City. Due to a reduced financial budget, Owen only remained on campus during the football season. In 1907, Owen lost his right arm in a hunting accident.
Early in Stratton D. Brooks's tenure as president of the University of Oklahoma, Owen was fired by the state legislature. They believed his salary of $3,500 () was far too great for an athletics coach and used the loss of his arm as an excuse for dismissal. They recommended he be terminated and shortly thereafter, he was. However, when Brooks heard of this news, he quickly got the decision rescinded. Owens did not learn of his "dismissal" until a week after his "re-hiring."