The head football coach at Lehigh University, John C. Whitehead, attended the same school as my father and two of my uncles - Scotland School for Veterans Children in Franklin County. Mr. Whitehead coached both my Uncle Joe and Uncle Ray in football. When I was in seventh grade my father told me that John had become the head football coach at Lehigh University. At the time I had never heard of Lehigh and snickered at the fact that they fielded a football team. To me college football consisted of Notre Dame, Penn State, Michigan and a host of other football factory power houses that I watched on Saturday afternoons in the fall. After being made aware of Lehigh football I began to pay attention when the division II scores were displayed during the games. To my surprise I began to notice that Lehigh was quite successful. In 1977 I watched on live television in great delight as Lehigh defeated Jacksonville State 33 - 0, crowning them the division II National Championship.
John Whitehead was born on September 7th 1924 in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania. John's coaching career began in 1950 at his high school Alma Meteor Scotland School as an assistant coach. After coaching 4 years at Scotland, Whitehead succeeded legendary coach Ken Millen at Carlisle, Pa., High School. Completing a record of 39-1-4 at Carlisle, Whitehead joined Lehigh as the offensive line coach with head coach Fred Dunlop. In 1970, Whitehead was named offensive coordinator. He was the architect of Lehigh's "Wing-T" offense for the 1973 Lambert Cup-winning Lehigh squad. In 1976, Dunlop left for Colgate and Whitehead took over as head coach at Lehigh.
John was an intense but down-to-earth man who came to symbolize Lehigh. He led the Engineers for 10 seasons, compiling a 75-38 record. That included a Division II national title in 1977 and two Lambert Trophy titles as the best squad in Division I-AA. He was named ABC Television's (in conjunction with General Motors) Coach of the Year in 1977 and 1979. In 1977 Whitehead coached his Engineers to the Division II national championship.