A member of the College Football Hall of Fame and one of true coaching greats, Manlove is entering the 19th year of his current stint as an assistant with the Aggies.
Manlove was inducted into the Hall of Fame in July of 2011. He was part of the ‘11 class that consisted of players and coaches from the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly I-AA), Divisions II, III and the NAIA.
Manlove compiled a 212-110-1 record in 32 years of collegiate head coaching before he announced his retirement as a head coach in November of 2001. He is one of just 38 coaches in the history of collegiate football to reach the 200-win plateau.
Manlove’s collegiate coaching career started in 1969 at Widener University (then Pennsylvania Military College) and he remained there for 23 years. He led the Pioneers to a 182-53-1 record with two NCAA Division III National Championships, seven Division III playoff berths and 10 Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) titles. He also posted a mind-boggling 21 straight winning seasons from 1970 to 1990.
Manlove’s first NCAA title came in 1977 with a 39-36 win over Wabash. Four years later, his squad completed a perfect 13-0 mark with a 17-10 victory over Dayton. He coached seven first team All-Americans at Widener and also coached NFL standouts Billy “White Shoes” Johnson and Joe Fields.
Manlove left Widener following the 1991 season and came to DelVal the next season. He went 10-29 in his four seasons as head coach of the Aggies.
Manlove then spent five seasons with Division I-AA La Salle University (1997-2001) as the Explorers reinstituted football for the first time since 1941. He posted a 20-28 record with La Salle, including winning records in 2000 (7-4) and 2001 (5-4). The seven wins in 2000 tied the school record that was originally set in 1934.
After retiring as a head coach in 2001, he returned to both DelVal and the football sidelines in 2002 as an assistant coach. He served as a consultant/assistant to the head coach in his first year, but took over the reigns of defensive coordinator for the 2003 season following a late staff departure. That was the turnaround year for the Aggies as they went from 2-8 in 2002 to 9-2 and an ECAC Southeast Bowl championship in ‘03.
Manlove returned to his role of consultant/assistant to the head coach the next year and the success has continued as DelVal has won seven MAC championship and has made seven trips to the NCAA Division III playoffs over the last 14 years.
Among the number of awards Manlove has received over the years is the National Coach of the Year two times and the MAC Coach of the Year on nine occasions. He was also the head coach of the Division III all-star team that represented the United States against Mexico in the Aztec Bowl in the last three years of the game’s existence.
