Wesley Englehorn

Who was Wesley Englehorn?

Wesley Theodore "Moose" Englehorn was an American football player and coach. Born in Spokane, Washington, Englehorn first gained fame as a football player for Spokane High School. While he was a junior in high school, he was reportedly recruited by Princeton University to come east to play football for the school. A newspaper account in 1907 reported: "It is expected that Wesley Englehorn, the giant left tackle of the high school team, will also enter the Eastern college. If this materializes the Spokane high school will be weakened next year by the loss of two of its greatest players. ... Englehorn is also a strong basket ball player and track athlete." Englehorn did not enroll at Princeton and instead played for two years on the All Star Pacific Northwest football and basketball teams. He began his collegiate career at Washington State College. After playing one year of football at Washington State, Englehorn enrolled at Dartmouth College, where he played two years at the tackle position. He was elected team captain for the 1913 season, but he was declared ineligible under "the so-called three-year rule" because of his year at Washington State. Though ineligible to play, Englehorn served as the team's assistant coach in 1913 and was elected class president. He was selected as a first-team All-American in 1912. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1914 and worked as a football coach for several years thereafter. From 1914 to 1916, he was the football coach at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1917, he was hired as the line coach and first assistant football coach at Colgate University. In 1920, he was an assistant coach under Frank Cavanaugh at Boston College. In 1921, he was hired as the head football coach at Amherst College. In January 1922, Englehorn announced his retirement from coaching. Shortly before his death at age 103, Englehorn said, "It's the football I remember best ... the teammates .. the teamwork." Prior to his death in 1993, he was living at Stapeley Hall, a home for the elderly in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was the oldest living All-American football player.