Howard W. Fletcher, NIU’s Hall of Fame football coach and director of the Huskies’ unbeaten 1963 College Division National Championship, died Tuesday night in a hospice facility near his Fort Meyers, Fla., retirement home at the age of 88.

Dying of natural causes, the Streator, Ill., native was housed in the Hope Hospice and Palliative Care of Lee County earlier in the week.

Known to most simply as “Fletch,” he was the owner of a 74-48-1 record in 13 years with the Huskies. Before his time with NIU, Fletcher had a 46-36-1 record in nine years as a high school coach at West Chicago High School (1947-51) and Walnut Hills in Cincinnati (1952-55).

Raising the bar for NIU football, Fletcher’s 1963 10-0-0 team was voted as the College Division National Champion by the Associated Press and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. It was that team that sparked the making of the new Huskie Stadium complex in 1965 and affiliation with the Mid-American Conference in 1973.

“Howard Fletcher is a Northern Illinois legend,” said NIU coach Joe Novak. “He was the man who initiated the modern era of football here [at NIU]. He was a real innovator, the forerunner of today’s wide-open offenses. Most of all, his kids enjoyed playing for him. You can tell those feelings when his former players return to our annual golf outing.”

George Bork, a former NIU All-American quarterback and College Football Hall of Fame member under Fletcher, remembers him as an originator and a rare breed.

“Football-wise, his mind was ahead of the times,” said Bork. “At that point of time [when Fletcher coached], we threw the ball 64 times a game, and that was unheard of back then. We all had tremendous respect for him. What a fantastic individual.”

Memorial services are scheduled for the Hope Hospice chapel today at 2:30 PM.