William Joseph Stewart (September 20 1894 - February 14 1964) was an American coach and sports official who was an ice hockey referee and coach, and also an umpire in Major League Baseball. In his first season as head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, he led the team to a Stanley Cup championship in 1938. Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, he is the only American-trained head coach to win the Stanley Cup. He was also an umpire in the National League from 1933 to 1954, and officiated in four World Series (1937, 1943, 1948, 1953) and four All-Star Games (1936, 1940, 1948, 1954), calling balls and strikes for the last contest. He also was the home plate umpire for Johnny Vander Meer's second consecutive no-hitter in 1938, and was the crew chief for the 1951 three-game pennant playoff between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Stewart grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and competed in baseball, hockey,
track and wrestling in high school. He
became a minor league baseball player with Worcester in the New England League in 1913, and in
1917, while with
During baseball offseasons in the 1910s and 1920s, he generally coached Boston-area college and high school hockey teams.[1] He became the NHL's first U.S.-born referee in 1928, and served in that capacity until 1941 excepting his two years (1937-39) as Chicago's coach. He coached the U.S. national hockey team in 1957, posting a 23-3-1 record, but the team was barred by the State Department from participating in the World Championships following the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Stewart worked 714 consecutive games from the time he entered the NL until September 1938, when he was stricken with appendicitis. He resigned from the NL umpiring staff in January 1955 after not being promoted to league supervisor, a position he claimed had been promised him by commissioner Ford Frick when he had been NL president; new league president Warren Giles instead announced that the position would not be filled. After retiring as an umpire, he continued to work as a scout for the Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators.[1]
Stewart died at age 69 at the Veterans Administration Hospital near his home in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston after suffering a stroke two weeks earlier. He was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1982. His grandson Paul also became an NHL player and referee.
References
- ^ a b c "Stewart, Ex-N.L. Arbiter and Hockey Ref, Dead at 68", The Sporting News, 1964-02-29, p. 36.
External links
| Chicago Blackhawks Head Coaches |
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| Muldoon • Stanley • Lehman • Gardiner • Irvin • Shaughnessy • Tobin • Iverson • Matheson • Gorman • Loughlin • Stewart • Thompson • Gottselig • Conacher • Goodfellow • Abel • Eddolls • Ivan • Pilous • Reay • White • Pulford • Johnston • Magnuson • Pulford • Tessier • Pulford • Murdoch • Keenan • D. Sutter • Hartsburg • Graham • Molleken • Pulford • Suhonen • B. Sutter • Yawney • Savard |
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