Owen, "Steve" Stephen J.
Football
b. April 21, 1898, Cleo Springs, OK
d. May 17, 1964
Owen loved horses as a boy in Oklahoma and at one time he hoped to become a jockey. Instead, he grew to be a 6-foot-2, 235-pound tackle.
After playing at Phillips University in his home state, Owen joined the NFL's Kansas City Cowboys for the 1924 and 1925 seasons. He went to the New York Giants in 1926 and remained with them, as a player and coach, for twenty-eight seasons.
Owen became player-coach of the team in 1931. He retired as a player after that season, but returned to appear in some games in 1933. The Giants lost to the Chicago Bears 23-21 in the 1934 NFL championship game, but beat the Bears 30-13 the following year.
That was the famous "Sneakers Game," played on an icy field at the Polo Grounds in New York. The Giants were losing 10-3 at the half, when Owen had his players replace their football cleats with basketball shoes for better footing. The Giants scored 27 points in the fourth quarter to win.
Owen took the Giants to six more championship games, in 1936, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1944, and 1946. They won only in 1938, beating the Green Bay Packers 23-17. In his 23 years as head coach, the Giants had 18 winning seasons.
A believer in the precept that "football is a game played down in the dirt and it always will be," Owen was especially known as a defensive strategist. His 1950 team held the powerful Cleveland Browns to just 21 points in three games, including an 8-3 loss in the division playoff. Owen devised the "umbrella defense" to stop the Cleveland passing attack. Starting with a six-man line, he had his defensive ends drop back into pass coverage. That was the origin of the 4-3-3 defense still commonly used.
After a 3-9-0 season in 1953, Owen resigned. He had an overall record of 153 wins, 108 losses, and 17 ties.
