Title: Ira R. Herr “Dear Coach” Collection, 1941-2008
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into 4 series:
Series 1. Letters to Ira Herr
Series 2. Permission Forms
Series 3. Photographs and Clippings
Administrative/Biographical History
“Coach” Ira R. Herr was born near Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania in 1894. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Franklin & Marshall College in 1916, he went on to become an Army First Lieutenant in World War I, a shoe salesman, a store owner, and a teacher. In 1928, Elizabethtown hired Herr as the college’s first athletic director and coach. That same year, Coach Herr started Elizabethtown College’s intercollegiate basketball program. From 1928 until 1949, Herr remained the sole coach of every athletic team at Elizabethtown College. He led the teams to enormous victories, including producing players with national records.
On December 25, 1937, Coach Herr married Kathryn Harper Nisley, a teacher and librarian at the local high school. In 1942, they had a baby girl named Lois Kathryn Herr. Ira Herr retired from Elizabethtown College in 1961, though he still taught and coached at Patton Trade School for ten years after his retirement from Elizabethtown. On September 30, 1970, the college opened a soccer and lacrosse field called the Ira R. Herr Field to memorialize Coach Herr. Then in 1975, Elizabethtown College opened the Ira R. Herr Athletic Hall of Fame to commemorate outstanding athletes from Elizabethtown sports teams. That same year, Coach Herr was elected into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. Ira R. Herr died in 1986 at age 92.
