Steve Owen ( American football ) Stephen Joseph Owen ( April 21 , 1898 – May 17 , 1964 ) was an American football player and coach who earned a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as head coach of the National Football League ' s New York Giants from 1930 to 1953 . Owen ' s skill at designing defenses , his fundamentals - centered approach to the game and his innovative " A formation , " a variation on the single - wing , also helped his offenses thrive and were key to his success . His personal style was memorable for the odd congruence of gravelly voice and easy disposition to go with his perpetual tobacco chewing . Early life . Owen was born in Cleo Springs , Oklahoma and raised in an area known as the Cherokee Strip in the Oklahoma Territory , where his original goal was to become a jockey , a dream denied by his 5 – 11 , 230 lb frame that earned him the nickname " Stout Steve . " While working on a cattle ranch , he attended Phillips University in Enid , Oklahoma where he was an all - around athlete in 1917 - 18 . He supplemented his income at that time as a professional wrestler under the pseudonym " Jack O ' Brien , " a ruse to preserve his amateur status . Football career . Owen served in the U . S . Army training corps in World War I , then returned to coach for a year at Phillips before going to work in oil fields in various parts of the Southwest . He started to play pro football in 1924 , at $ 50 a game , for the NFL ' s Kansas City Cowboys ( who played all their games on the road ! ) . After playing for the Cowboys and then the Cleveland Bulldogs in 1925 , he was sold to the New York Giants in 1926 for $ 500 , joining his brother Bill . After a futile attempt to get a cut of the purchase price from Kansas City coach Leroy Andrews , he later said of the sale : His leadership became clearly evident during the 1927 NFL season as captain of a team that outscored opponents 197 – 20 , went 11 - 1 - 1 and won the NFL title . In 1930 , he was promoted to co - player - coach for the final two games of the season with another future Hall of Famer , Benny Friedman . The 2 – 0 finish was a premonition of Owen ' s future long - term success as sole head coach starting the following season , accepting the position under a unique arrangement : he never signed a contract , but had a handshake agreement with the long - term owners , the Mara family . He retired as a player following the 1931 NFL season except for a brief comeback in 1933 , helping the Giants go 11 – 3 and get to the title game , the first of eight appearances the Giants would make during his tenure . The team slipped to 8 – 5 in 1934 , but still made the NFL championship game again . Facing the 13 – 0 Chicago Bears , the Giants came in as huge underdogs and trailed 13 – 3 at halftime . The icy conditions and 9°F weather led to an adjustment between halves that became a memorable part of National Football League lore . A friend of the Maras owned a nearby shoe warehouse , and opened it on that freezing Sunday afternoon to supply the entire team with new sneakers for better footing on the frozen turf than they had had with conventional cleats , enabling them to run off 17 unanswered points in the second half for a 30 – 13 win and the team ' s first title . More than seven decades later , the contest is still remembered as " the sneakers game . " Despite the institution of the NFL draft due to the continued dominance of the Bears and Giants , the Giants returned to the championship game in 1935 and won their second and last title under Owen in 1938 , 23 - 17 over the Green Bay Packers despite being outgained in yardage 379 – 208 , with nine points on two blocked punts the margin of victory . New York appeared in four more season - ending NFL title clashes under Owen , but lost them all . An early World War II Three Stooges short referred to them when Moe sarcastically asked a hulking adversary , " Did you ever play footborl for da Giants ? ! " In 1950 , the Giants faced a powerful new foe with the arrival of the All - America Football Conference champion Cleveland Browns , who consigned them to runner - up finishes in each of the next three seasons although Owen ' s " umbrella defense " that shut down passing attacks made life miserable for the first - place Browns as New York won four of their six regular - season meetings , but dropped a defensive playoff struggle with them after finishing tied with the Browns for the Eastern Division title at the end of the 1950 season by the baseball - like score of 8 - 3 ( thanks to a Cleveland safety ) for the privilege of meeting the Western Division champion Los Angeles Rams in the title game , which the Browns won by two points on a go - ahead field goal in the closing seconds after trailing virtually the entire game . After football - playing career . Owen was the host of " Pro Football Highlights " on the DuMont Television Network from 1951 - 53 . After the Giants slipped to 3 – 9 in 1953 , Owen announced his retirement as head coach ( moving into the team ' s front office as head scout ) , ending his 23 + seasons on the field in New York at 150 – 99 – 17 . As the final minutes ticked away in his last game as Giant coach , a late - game loss , television cameras showed him standing alone on the sidelines in tears . But he returned to the college ranks a year later as a spring practice assistant , first at South Carolina and then at Baylor , signing on as assistant coach at Baylor University in Texas on July 18 , 1955 . Just weeks after the end of the 1955 NFL season , the Philadelphia Eagles hired Hugh Devore as head coach and added Owen as his assistant soon after . But two seasons of struggling in Philadelphia led to the entire coaching staff ' s dismissal , and Owen eventually became a head coach yet again , this time on an interim basis with the Canadian Football League ' s Toronto Argonauts on September 21 , 1959 . The Argonauts declined Owen ' s offer to stay on as full - time head coach for 1960 , but retained him as a scout and advisor before he moved to the CFL ' s Calgary Stampeders on August 23 , 1960 as interim head coach , but as in Toronto Owen was replaced at the end of the season . On December 29 of the same year , he was named head coach of the CFL Saskatchewan Roughriders , a team that had won just once in 1960 . Owen ' s 1961 team nearly reached the playoffs , then did so the following year and was voted CFL Coach of the Year . But after suffering a heart attack late in 1962 , he resigned on January 6 , 1963 . Unable to stay away from the sport , however , he soon came back as head coach of the United Football League ' s Syracuse Stormers on March 20 , 1963 only to return to his beloved Giants that November to scout for them , unfortunately for only a short time before being stricken with a terminal cerebral hemorrhage the following May . A great active life in football came to a sad end after eight days in critical care , on May 17 , 1964 . Steve Owen was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the fourth class , enshrined 17 September 1966 .