Knox College Athletics

Harold C. Turner devoted twenty-six years of his life to Knox College and it’s students.  While he is, sadly, not with us today, his memory lives on in the hearts of the students and players he touched.

Harold graduated from Coe college in 1923 and went on to receive his master’s of science degree from Columbia University in 1933.  Before coming to Knox, Harold took on the head football coaching duties at Maine Township High School, where he was also the Dean of boys.

Coach Turner’s first season at Knox ended one game shy of the .500 mark.  During only his second year at Knox, however, Harold Turner turned the failing program around and won the Midwest Conference Championship in 1939.  Over his sixteen years as head football coach, Harold compiled an overall winning record of 57 wins, 52 losses, and 7 ties, and is currently the winningest coach in Knox football history.  Under his reign, Knox beat Coe for the first time in fourteen years and broke Lawrence’s 28-game winning streak in 1947.

Not only did Harold Turner direct winning football teams, but as head swimming coach, his teams were consistently one of the top three in the Midwest conference during the 1950’s, winning the MWC title in 1957.  He also coached the track team, which, under his direction, won the conference championship meet in 1952.

Harold was also the first cross country coach at Knox from 1955-1964, he was the only coach in Midwest Conference history to win conference championships in three major sports.  He also coached four men who were inducted into the Knox Athletic Hall of Fame in 1994- Mondo Lopez and Russ Petrick in football, Bob Proebsting ins winning, and Mike Morin in track and field.

During Coach Turner’s 26 years at Knox, he always considered scholarship, sportsmanship, and charter-building ahead of winning, yet, he excelled at that as well.  Accepting his induction plaque into the Knox-Lombard Athletic Hall of Fame this evening are his sons, Robert and Ken Turner.