Bio

Father Stanton was the Gee-Gees football coach from 1907-1912, including the Dominion Championship-winning 1907 team and coaching Syl Quilty during his university career. Stanton also coached the "Ottawa Combines" in 1913, a team which was an amalgamation of the Ottawa Rough Riders and Ottawa College.

Born in Buffalo, NY on July 1, 1880, Father Stanton began his studies at the University of Ottawa in 1903. He was ordained at the University of Ottawa in 1906 and joined the teaching staff in 1907, staying on until 1915 when he returned to Buffalo.

He was known as a dynamic orator and was a professor of Latin and prefect of discipline at the university. During his time at uOttawa, Father Stanton also coached hockey and baseball. Father Stanton introduced at least five innovations to Canadian football, including the spiral punt, taking a player from the backfield and making him a flying wing, and creating deception plays.

Father Stanton later became Provincial of the First Oblate Province of the United States, preaching in cathedrals in all parts of North America. He resided in Buffalo, Lowell, Mass., and Colorado Springs, Colo. during his career.

Father Stanton was killed in an automobile accident near Chatham, Ont. in January of 1937.

"It was Father "Bill" Stanton who brought the University of Ottawa teams to a place of prominence in the football and hockey world, and his coaching was acknowledged to be on a par with, if not superior to, most of the coaches of his day. A keen athlete in his student days, and one who might have made a success as a professional baseball player, Father Stanton put all this behind him when he was ordained i Holy Orders. His love of sport, however, remained predominant after he as ordained into the preisthood, and hundreds of young men and boys benefited by the ardor and agacity which he carried with him into the direction of athletics."

"It was said of Father Stanton that he "could do anything with a team". It was a proven fact that he could take boys who never before had seen a football, let alone played the game, and mould them into a machine that was rated in the very highest of company. While all his University of Ottawa teams did not win championships, he established those teams as ones which the other coaches envied and admired."

- The Ottawa Citizen, Jan 2 1937