Ed Charters, a 1949 Cheltenham High School graduate and a native of Glenside, was a military veteran, a standout football player, and an award-winning high school coach.

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, Charters starred in football, basketball, and baseball during his time in Wyncote, and scored the lone touchdown to give the Panthers a 6-0 victory over Abington in the 1948 annual backyard football classic.

Charters went on to Temple University where he was a three-year starter. He left college early to serve two years in the Korean War. After finishing his military service, he played one season of Canadian football “until five cracked ribs on a punt return saddled me for good,” he said.

He was later hired as the head football coach at Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School, a position he held through the 1960s and 1970s.

His teams won numerous Suburban One championships, and he was named Coach of the Year several times. Charters had assembled one of the better high school teams in Pennsylvania in 1973, a commonly held assertion that even Penn State coach Joe Paterno endorsed in a congratulatory letter he sent to the team at the end of the season.

Every year at the Montgomery County All-Star Football game, the Most Valuable Players on the North and South squads are recognized with the “Ed Charters Memorial Award.”  

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