Having friends in high places helped Bill Doolittle kick-start his football career.
It’s not every young coach who could cite a legend like Paul Brown as a job reference, so it’s understandable that Owosso superintendent L.P. Cushman was skeptical when he read Doolittle’s resume in 1952.
Cushman decided to call Doolittle’s bluff. “He said, ‘Bill, I see your credentials you’ve got Paul Brown as a character witness, ” Doolittle recalls. ‘”I said ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Call him. Doolittle, who was 28 at the time, called the offices of the Cleveland Browns, the NFL team that Brown founded and coached.
He said, “Billy how are you doing? My gosh, it’s good to hear from you,” Doolittle said. “I said, “There’s a guy who wants to talk to you named Dr. Cushman.’ Dr. Cushman didn’t know what to say. It’s one of those things that worked out. I’ve always remembered that: Call him.”
All other interviews for the Owosso High School coaching job were cancelled and Doolittle was immediately offered the job. It was one of several stops during a coaching journey that included six years at Flint Central and has earned him a spot in the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
Doolittle was on the freshman football team at Ohio State when he first met Brown, who was the Buckeyes’ head coach for three seasons. They were from the same part of Ohio, Doolittle playing in Mansfield while Brown was coaching in Masillon. Brown wasn’t the only coaching legend with whom Doolittle rubbed elbows.
0ne of Doolittle’s stops was Brown University, where he was the backfield coach from 1949-51. It was at Brown that Doolittle helps coach a quarterback named Joe Paterno. “He couldn’t run fast, but he always got there,” Doolittle said. “He couldn’t throw hard, but he always completed the pass. He played defense and he always made the interception. What he lacked in speed he had in being there at the right time.”
Doolittle came to Michigan to coach at Owosso in 1952. After two years with the Trojans, he was hired at Central and compiled a 40-12-2 record with the Indians. His 1958 team went 8-0-1 and won the mythical state Class A championship.
“Flint was good to me,” Doolittle said. “Of course, the Northern-Central game on Thanksgiving was always a great thrill -getting ready for. Nothing measured up to that from a high school standpoint.”
He left Flint and returned to Mansfield to coach for two years then went to Army as an assistant coach before taking over as head coach at Western Michigan University in 1964. Doolittle’s longest coaching stint was at Western, where he had a 58-49-2 record in 11 seasons.
His 1966 team shared the Mid-American Conference championship with Miami of Ohio, which was coached by future Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. “In ’66, we killed everybody: 14-13, 25-24,” Doolittle said. “I had a kicker named Dale Livingston who won five games for us.” Doolittle, who is 82, stepped down after the 1974 season and remained with the university for 15 years as an athletic fund raiser. In his retirement, he split time between Kalamazoo and Florida until selling his Michigan home a year ago.
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