Dental Protection

Rutgers alumnus W. Robert Howarth has been designing and donating custom mouthguards and providing emergency dental services to Scarlet Knights athletes for 26 years. His passion shows no signs of abating.

W. Robert Howarth prefers to “fly under the radar,” as he puts it, volunteering where he can with no need for fanfare or accolades.

For more than a quarter of a century, he has donated much of his spare time serving as the team dentist for Rutgers Athletics in Piscataway and New Brunswick. A passion wells up in him when he discusses his favorite calling: manufacturing custom-fitted mouthguards for players and improving on the latest iteration of his designs.

“I love sports, and I love dentistry,” he says. “And I have always wanted to help Rutgers. It’s that simple.”

When the Scarlet Knights take the field for the football season opener on August 28, players will be equipped with mouthguards made by Howarth. Since 1999, he has provided dentistry services to all Rutgers Division I sports teams, deploying the latest in materials and technology to fashion unique mouthguards that have spared athletes broken and dislodged teeth, as well as other episodes of oral trauma.

And if a dental crisis arises, Howarth is on call to perform emergency services. There have been many:

• A wrestler was head-butted with such severity that his upper teeth were dislodged. Howarth saved his teeth.

• A diver on the women’s swimming team chipped her two front teeth as her foot slipped on the ladder and her face struck the concrete edge of the pool. Howarth came to the cosmetic rescue.

• Just hours before a women’s soccer game, a player on the opposing team complained of pain, stemming from a misalignment of her bite in the back of her mouth. Howarth had a fix.

• A player on the men’s basketball team took an elbow to the mouth and lost a front tooth from a dental appliance. “I fixed the tooth and I got him back to the game in time to celebrate a win,” Howarth said.

Howarth’s enthusiasm for this side gig—he has a thriving 45-year-old dental practice in North Plainfield, with no plans to retire—hasn’t diminished an iota since he began more than a quarter of a century ago.

A New Jersey Native with a Rutgers Legacy

Howarth’s father, William R. Howarth, was a 1938 Rutgers College graduate who competed on the wrestling and crew teams. His father also served as student manager of the swim team, a job which included the responsibility of registering all participants in the NCAA swimming and diving championships at the College Avenue pool in New Brunswick.

I love sports, and I love dentistry. And I have always wanted to help Rutgers. It’s that simple.

W. Robert Howarth

Growing up in Highland Park, New Jersey, Howarth often attended Rutgers football games and other sporting events with his father, further growing his love for Rutgers.

During his own undergraduate years at Rutgers College in the late 1960s, when he was studying for an undergraduate degree in biology, Howarth, whose mother was a nurse, initially had eyes on becoming a doctor—inspired, in part, by his aunt Catherine Spears, one of the nation’s few female physicians practicing in the 1940s.

Studying at the height of the Vietnam War (and attending concerts at The Barn, the nickname for the College Avenue Gymnasium, which was a veritable highlight reel of top ’60s performers), Howarth received a ROTC commission and sought a deferment in order to attend medical school. Rejected by several schools, Howarth returned to Rutgers and received a master of science in microbiology in 1975 to burnish his credentials as he recalibrated his career plans and applied to dental schools. He was accepted at New York University, graduating in 1976, and began fulfilling his commitment to the U.S. Army, which had granted him “educational delay” status so that he could complete a dental residency before serving.

“I was learning to be a dentist, and the Army provided all the patients, all the staff, and all the scheduling,” Howarth says, recalling his four years of active duty at U.S. Army’s facility at Fort Benning in Georgia. “I could coordinate with oral surgeons, periodontists, and all kinds of specialists. It was a general-practice residency—but in the military. I really got educated.”

Moving back to New Jersey in 1980, Howarth took over a small dental practice in North Plainfield and built it up to a robust clientele. He continues to be a perennial recipient of professional accolades, including recent recognition as a 2025 NJ Top Dentist.

In addition to starting his practice, he continued to serve in the Army Reserve at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, a commitment that lasted until 1998 when he retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Becoming the Team Dentist

When Rutgers Athletics needed a dentist in 1999, Howarth was a perfect fit. He was a 1983 charter member of the Academy for Sports Dentistry, an organization of dentists nationwide who serve high school, college, and professional sports teams. The dentists convene for frequent conferences to share best practices for designing mouthguards as well as treating dental trauma.

“As team dentists, we get together and go over things,” Howarth says. “These are some of the most caring people you would ever want to meet. A lot of times, dentists, as in any profession, want to get an edge and won’t share their tricks and techniques. It’s the exact opposite with these dentists.”

Through his membership, Howarth is also a certified team dentist for the United States Olympic teams, which has included making mouthguards for the men’s bobsled and luge teams in Lake Placid, New York.

His favorite sports at Rutgers have always been football and men’s basketball, for which he has had season tickets since 1970. He also has supported the university and its teams with financial gifts, contributing generously over the years.

“Dr. Howarth’s commitment to the Rutgers Athletics program over the decades is truly remarkable,” says Joshua Bershad, Rutgers Athletics’ chief medical officer. “His tireless efforts to provide mouthguards and emergency dental services are essential to the well-being of our student-athletes. When you combine that with his generous financial gifts and longstanding support as a long-time season ticket holder, he is a true Scarlet Knight.”

Although Howarth is a proud advocate of the Scarlet Knights, much of his family has different Big Ten perspectives: his wife, Barbara, graduated from Ohio State; his daughter, Robyn, from Indiana University and the University of Iowa; and his younger son, Timothy, from the University of Michigan.

Only his older son, W. Robert Howarth II, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rutgers College in 2003, is the lone voice of Scarlet support. “It’s a house divided, no doubt about it,” Howarth says.

But it’s giving back to Rutgers teams with their dental needs—be it mouthguards or emergencies—and supporting others in sports dentistry that keeps him most animated, year after year after year.

“I’m always willing to mentor dentists to help them become more knowledgeable in sports dentistry,” he says. “I have given lectures on topics such as dental trauma and mouth guard fabrication. Sometimes people come into my office and I show them how to make mouth guards.”

He says his motivation is easy to explain.

“Somebody might think I am a mad scientist, or something, because of my lifelong passion for designing mouthguards. But I’m kind of a simple guy, really. I just do my job; I don’t need the accolades. It’s not why I am doing this. I’m doing it for my love of Rutgers and doing what I can to give back.”

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