Hall of Fame
Hometown: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Joseph E. Schneider, Class of 1936, was another one of the many Cedar Rapids boys who made an outstanding record in sports at Coe during the decade of the Thirties. He arrived at Coe with distinguished athletic credentials as a high school star at Washington High School, where he had participated in football, basketball, and track. At Washington he had played in the Iowa State Basketball Tournament.
In his years at Coe he won 9 letters in football, basketball, and track. In the memorable days of coach Moray Eby, Joe Schneider was a key member of championship football teams in 1934 and 1935.
Football fans of a younger generation are accustomed to watching teams with 75 men in uniform, most of them specialists: punters, place kickers, receivers or defensive backs. It's hard for fans used to platoons of specialists to recognize the demands placed on the endurance and skills of the players of Joe Schneider's era. Mr. Schneider, for example, was the ball carrier and leading scorer on his team. But he was also a passer, a pass receiver, and he did the team's punting. And that was only what he did on offense; he played defense also. On the 1934 team the squad totaled 30 men of whom only 17 qualified for the coveted "C" letter.
Joe Schneider was also a regular in basketball. Again, to show the contrast between the game in the Thirties and the game now, in his senior year he was high point man in several games with a total of 7 points.
He remained active in sports long after his graduation from Coe. For 15 years he was a Big Ten official, a career climaxed by assignment to officiate the 1965 Rose Bowl game.
