"Rip" Engle, the Tigers, and the Spirit of Waynesboro

Abstract

Situated in the Cumberland Valley, just north of the Mason-Dixon Line, is a sleepy little town that has long been overshadowed by nearby Civil War sites such as Gettysburg, Chambersburg, and Antietam, and the larger metropolises of Harrisburg, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. Virtually no notable persons or events have been associated with Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, but from the 1930s to the 1950s this municipality of about 12,000 experienced a strong sense of communal pride from its football teams that had far-reaching consequences....The key figure behind this phenomenon was a young mathematics teacher named Charles "Rip" Engle, who for over a decade coached the local high school team to an unprecedented series of victories and stimulated a general interest in football until he entered the college ranks in 1941.