One of Trinity's all-time great coaches, Professor Ray Gettell, head of the history department but also a former standout QB at Ursinus College, led Trinity into the modern age of football, starting as a part-time coach in 1907 and finishing with the great Ted Hudson team of 1913. More than anyone, Ray Gettell put Trinity football on the map. 

Born in 1881 in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, a mill town in central PA, he was the son a man who worked as a traveling salesman for the largest employer in town, The Shippensburg Pants Factory. He was a star athlete and Valedictorian at Ursinus College, graduating in 1904. 

The 1904 Ruby yearbook described him as "this fine specimen of humanity," and in commenting on his work as a teacher at the Ursinus College academy, wrote, "He takes much pleasure in instilling some learning into the preps, who regard him as an encyclopedia." 

"The ease with which he gets his work accomplished," continued the yearbook, "affords him considerable time to indulge in his favorite pasttimes of reading and jolleying brownback, as well as strolling through ancient graveyards looking up forgotten lore." 

"He is possesed of great bodily strength and takes an active part in athletics. He very ably filled the position of quarterback on the famous 1902 football team."

Indeed, that 1902 Ursinus College football was one of the greatest in the history of the college, going 9-0 with victories over NYU, Rutgers, Swarthmore, Haverford, and Franklin & Marshall. This was at a time, by the way, when Trinity football was really struggling. In fact, the last games of the 1902 were canceled due to lack of interest and funds. 

Ray Gettell would turn things around for Trinity football. Over his seven seasons (including the 1907 team as assistant), he compiled a record of 41-12-6 (.694 win %). This for a team that over the previous 7 years had only won 14 games. 

Beyond the record book, though, Gettell earned plaudits from being an effective pioneer in the "modern" game of football that emerged after 1905. 

"Much of Trinity's success is due to Professor Raymond G. Gettell, a graduate of Ursinus College, where he displayed prowess as a player," wrote D.L. Reeves of the Philadelphia Ledger. "Professor Gettell is an independent thinker, in the football world, and was one of the first to realize the opportunity offered by the revised game. He did not hesitate to cast aside all tradition and past experience, but constructed his teams on advanced ideas by applying brains to theoretical football, with the result that, although short of coaching in individual technique, Trinity has turned out teams as distinct from those of other small colleges, as Harvard was from Yale, or Yale from Harvard in old days." 

"We cannot say too much for Professor Gettell," wrote the 1913 Trinity Ivy. "Here is a history Professor who coaches and develops a successful football team as a side issue. He applies his classroom theories to the gridiron and, strange as it may seem, they work." 

Gettell left Trinity in 1914 to take over the department of government at the University of Texas, then returned out East where he taught at Amherst, and coached some, before settling at the University of California - Berkley, where he taught for 26 years until his death in 1949.