Introduction
Henderson E. "Harry" "Dutch" Van Surdam (September 28, 1881 – May 28, 1982) was an American football player and coach. He played college football at Wesleyan University from 1902 to 1905. Surdam then served as the head football coach at Marietta College in 1906 and 1907, at Sewanee: The University of the South in 1908, and at The Texas State School of Mines and Metallurgy, now the University of Texas at El Paso, in 1920, compiling a career record of 22–8–3. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1972.
Van Surdam said of Chigger Browne, quarterback for his 1908 Sewanee Tigers, he "was the greatest quarterback that I have ever seen in my 50 years of being connected with football as a coach and official . . . he was fast as lightning and wasn't afraid of anything. Chigger was so small that we had to keep him taped up to prevent him from getting broken up . . . We had only 18 men on the squad. If we wanted to scrimmage we had to bend the line around."
Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marietta Pioneers () (1906–1907) | |||||||||
| 1906 | Marietta | 9–1 | |||||||
| 1907 | Marietta | 7–2 | |||||||
| Marietta: | 16–3 | ||||||||
| Sewanee Tigers (Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association) (1908) | |||||||||
| 1908 | Sewanee | 4–1–3 | |||||||
| Sewanee: | 4–1–3 | ||||||||
| Texas Mines Miners (Independent) (1920) | |||||||||
| 1920 | Texas Mines | 2–4 | |||||||
| Texas Mines: | 2–4 | ||||||||
| Total: | 22–8–3 | ||||||||