Richards' 1912 season at Ohio State was notable for his action of pulling his team from the field during a loss to Penn State due to rough play.

This action was widely ridiculed in contemporary newspapers by commentary such as "Coach Richards of Ohio State, who took his team off the field Saturday because he declared Penn State was too rough, evidently was never on Lake Erie on a choppy sea.

Previously, he had been a high school football coach and economics instructor in Dubuque, Iowa, and a principal of military academies in Minnesota and Missouri.

[2] After retiring from coaching, Richards was a director of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District, a part of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, from 1929 to 1947.

This biographical article relating to a college football coach first appointed in the 1910s is a stub.