August Frederick Markötter

August Frederick 'Oubaas Mark' Markötter (1878–1957) was a South African rugby union player and national selector who coached Stellenbosch Rugby Football Club from 1903 to 1957. As coach he not only turned Maties into the world's largest rugby club but forged 50 of his players into Springboks and got nearly 150 of his players selected for the Western Province team. Eleven of the 1906 Springbok touring squad to Britain "had developed under him at Stellenbosch". He has also been credited with entrenching the swing-pass among his players.

Markötter was "one of the most influential and significant personalities in South African rugby, which he dominated" between 1903 and 1957.

Early life August Frederick Markötter, better known as 'Oubaas Mark' or 'Mr Mark', was born on 10 June 1878 on the Berlin Missionary Society's Haarlem mission station, near Uniondale in the Western Cape, South Africa. He was the third son of missionary Christoph Heinrich Markötter (d.1893) and Mari Henriette (née Beuster, d.1932). His parents had immigrated separately from Germany to South Africa, where they had met and married. When August Frederick was 15, his father was killed in an accident with a horse-drawn carriage at Humansdorp, where he was buried. His mother remarried in 1896.

Young Markötter showed great promise as a student, succeeding with honours in schools at Haarlem and Uniondale, and under a Mr Stucki at Blouvlei. It is at Blouvlei that he received the nickname 'Oubaas', by which he would be known for the rest of his life. A severe knee injury that he sustained in a 1904 cricket match ended his career as rugby player. Subsequently, he turned to coaching, establishing a reputation for "uncompromising coaching methods". Markötter's contribution was to coach his players to wheel the formation after which the No. 8 would pick up the ball and break.