William Christian Schmeisser (August 4, 1880 – July 1, 1941), known widely as "Father Bill", was an American lacrosse player, coach, and patron. He served as the head coach of the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays for ten non-consecutive years, and won eight national championships. He was also an active patron of the sport and promoter of its development. He helped found the highly successful amateur Mount Washington Lacrosse Club. Schmeisser viewed his role in the sport as altruistic, and he never received monetary compensation for coaching. Education He was born on August 4, 1880 in Baltimore, Maryland and attended high school at Baltimore City College, from which he graduated in 1899. He received his undergraduate college education at Johns Hopkins University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1902. While at Hopkins, Schmeisser played as a defenseman on the lacrosse team from 1900 to 1902. He was also a member of the Beta Mu chapter of Phi Gamma Delta. Schmeisser returned to Johns Hopkins for graduate study in the field of political economy, and played an additional year of lacrosse, in 1905. In 1907, he graduated from the school of law at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Role in lacrosse In 1902, he served as team captain and as a co-coach for Johns Hopkins alongside Ronald T. Abercrombie. That season, the team was awarded the Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (ILA) national championship. The following year, Schmeisser became the sole head coach, and the team again garnered the ILA championship. He returned to Hopkins as its head lacrosse coach from 1905 to 1909. Schmeisser took the position again from 1923 to 1925, and Johns Hopkins secured the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) championships in 1923 and 1924. Schmeisser helped organize and played on the Mount Washington Lacrosse Club, a highly successful Baltimore-based amateur team. Since there was no professional league, many former college lacrosse stars played for Mount Washington. The club regularly participated in exhibition games against the top intercollegiate programs and very rarely lost. In 1904, Schmeisser and Abercrombie co-authored Lacrosse: From Candidate to Team, a book which became the sport's standard text for the next fifty years. He also helped promote lacrosse at the University of Maryland and the Naval Academy. Schmeisser was known to often carry a furled umbrella on the sidelines, regardless of the weather, and he stated that his reason for doing so was, "This