John Howard

John Armstrong "Army" Howard (October 6, 1888 – January 9, 1937 competing in the 1912 Summer Olympics.

Details of Howard's early life are sparse: he may have been born in Winnipeg or in Minnesota. In addition to his domination of Canadian sprinting, he also played baseball as a catcher on the Crescent Creamery Baseball Club in Winnipeg.

Major Canadian media cited him as Canada's best gold medal hope for the 1912 Olympics. During training for the Olympics, he ran into conflicts with chief coach Walter Knox; according to the Manitoba Free Press of June 27, 1912, Knox accused Howard of insubordination, and, in an era when discrimination against black athletes was common, threatened to expel him from the team. The efforts of the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada kept Howard on the team. In the Olympics in Stockholm, he was hindered by a stomach ailment He competed in the 1919 Inter-Allied Games held in Paris where he won the bronze medal in the 100 metres race.

He returned to Canada about two years after going to Europe with a white English wife, Edith (née Lipscomb). They homesteaded in Ste. Rose du Lac, north of Winnipeg, but were forced to leave by hostility to the interracial marriage. Howard found work as a railway porter. Later, the marriage broke up.

He is the grandfather of Olympic sprinters Harry Jerome and Valerie Jerome.

In 2000, John Howard was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum.