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George Munger |
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 When World War I ended, George Almon Munger was a
little boy. But by the time World War II was over, Goerge Almon Munger was halfway
to the Hall of Fame.Munger took over as Penn's head football coach in 1939. He compiled a 52-7-4 Ivy League record over the next 16 years, creating a monstrous group of Quakers that left fans fighting for tickets at Franklin field, boosting Penn to the nation's top spot in football attendance. Thanks to a single-wing offense and a disciplined defense, Penn would win the Ivy League's mythical title nine times during Munger's tenure and 16 players, including Chuck Bednarik and Reds Bagnell, would be named All-Americans. While Munger coached at Penn, three of his players went on to win the Maxwell Award. They were: Robert H. Odell (1943), Charles (Chuck) Bednarik (1948) and Francis J. (Reds) Bagnell (1950). "When I was 15, I knew I wanted to be a coach," Munger once said. He credited his high school coach, Lambert F. Whetstone, with installing that interest in him. Whetstone coached at Episcopal Academy, where Munger captained the football team in 1928 and 1929. Episcopal just happened to win every game and a pair of Interac championships those two seasons. Munger added those titles to three others his teams won at Episcopal -- two in basketball and one in baseball. He knew his way around Episcopal's track as well, setting school records in the pole-vault, high jump, discus and javelin. As a student-athlete at Penn, Munger starred as a half-back and fullback in the Quakers' backfield. But he carved his place into Franklin field lore by winning the decathlon at the 1931 Penn Relays. After graduating from Penn in 1933, Munger returned to Episcopal to coach football and track and teach Math and Sacred Studies. He stayed there until 1936. That's when he went back to Penn to coach the Quakers' freshman track and football squads until he became head football coach three years later. When his coaching career ended in 1954, Munger became director and professor of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Physical Education. Among George Almon Munger's countless awards is an honorary Doctors of Law Degree from his alma mater. In the presentation of that degree, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania called Munger "an angel with a single wing who soared into the record books." The Maxwell Football Club honors that heavenly coach by making his coaching success, his devotion to ethics in athletics, and his commitment to education the standard for which all college coaches should strive. Coach Munger passed away in 1994. |
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