Ira Herr, Elizabethtown College
Coach and Athletic Director – 1928-51
When Elizabethtown College started intercollegiate play in 1928, Ira Herr played an influential role in building Elizabethtown athletics from the ground up, coaching numerous teams (baseball, men's/women's basketball, men's soccer, men's/women's tennis, and cross country) and acted as Director of Athletics for 33 years from 1930-61. In face, from 1928-1950, Herr was the entire Elizabethtown College coaching staff! He took the only 15 remaining men on campus during WWII in 1942 and turned them into student-athletes as E-town sustained intercollegiate competition in baseball, soccer, and track. He acted as a catalyst to Elizabethtown being one of the first school's to offer intercollegiate athletics for women. As a coach, Herr led the Blue Jays to a MAC Championship in men's soccer in 1959, NAIA National Co-Championship in 1960, and NAIA National Runners-Up in 1959. Herr is inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame and is the namesake to the Elizabethtown College Athletic Hall of Fame. Elizabethtown and Franklin & Marshall men's soccer teams play annually for the
Smith-Herr Boot, named in honor of former coching legends, Herr, and F&M's Robert Smith.
Ira Herr's Elizabethtown Hall of Fame Page
Ira Herr: Coach, Teacher, Pioneer in Sports