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William Enlow Amos ’28 is the 2012 Robert M. Murphy Award Winner. He was a bruising fullback for the Presidents, known as “The Wild Bill Of Campus”. Amos was a three-sport athlete at W&J, lettering three years in football and basketball and two years in track & field. He was a two-time football team captain and led the Presidents to a 20-3-1 record as a player. During a 20-6 victory over Carnegie Tech at Forbes Field in October 1927, Amos scored all three W&J touchdowns, including a school-record 90-yard punt return. That game set a school record for attendance as 12,000 fans were there to see the Presidents’ victory.
The 1927 Presidents appeared to be on their way to their second trip to the Rose Bowl, but W&J tied West Virginia in the season finale and was not selected, despite a 7-0-2 record (also tied Pitt 0-0). A two-time All-American and All-East selection, Amos picked up the sport of football at the age of 17 as an American soldier in France. He played in two East-West Shrine Games and made a career out of football, becoming the Presidents’ head coach and guiding W&J to 17 victories from 1929-1931. On October 25, 1930, he was the coach for the first indoor college football night game as W&J played Lafayette in Atlantic City, N.J. Amos later became the head coach at Grove City College and Washington High School.
He was one of the founders of PONY Baseball and was instrumental in bringing the “Punt, Pass & Kick” program to Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1973, Amos was honored with the W&J Distinguished Service Award due to his dedication to the development of youth sports in the community.
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