Tom Getz is a 1967 graduate of Manheim Central High School and a 1974 graduate of Millersville University. Tom earned five varsity letters at Manheim Central with two in football and three in baseball. He was a starting center and linebacker for the Barons football team and was voted the Most Valuable Player on the 1966 team, as well as Outstanding Offensive and Defensive Lineman. He was the 1966 recipient of the Bernie Rider Award as the Lancaster County League’s Outstanding Lineman and named to the 1967 Lancaster County All-Star Team. Tom also won the 1967 Hamilton Award in the Wheatland Sertoma All-Star game as the game’s Most Valuable Lineman. In 1991 he was voted to Manheim Central’s Big 33 All-Star Team.

While playing baseball at Manheim Central, Tom was a 1967 Lancaster Intell First Team All-League Outfielder and won the 1967 Lancaster County League batting title with a .452 average. He was named the Henry “Hank” Cassel Award winner as the baseball team’s most valuable player. Tom also won a Class A State Slow pitch Softball Title in 1972 as a player on the Clair’s Grocery softball team of Lititz.

As the Head Baseball Coach at Hempfield High School for 30 years, Tom accumulated 423 wins, nine Section One titles (83, 93, 95, 96, 97, 00, 01, 03 and 05), and a league record six L-L League championships (96, 97, 98, 99, 04, and 05). The four consecutive titles is also a league record. In 2004 his team captured Hempfield’s only District Three Baseball championship and went on to be an Eastern State finalist.

Tom also coached football at Hempfield for 32 years. He was the defensive coordinator under head coach Jack Yohe when the team won Section One titles in 84, 87, 92, 93 and 94. He took over as head coach for his last 10 years at Hempfield, compiling a record of 63-40 with Section One titles in 1998 and 2005 and was named Section One Coach of the Year in 2005. The 2005 squad was the only team in school history to finish the season ranked in the top 10 in the state (seventh in AAAA). Tom was head coach of the 2002 Lancaster County War of the Roses team which defeated York 31-14. Lancaster Newspaper’s Mike Gross wrote in an October 10, 2004 story for the Sunday News stating, “it is believed that no other school in District Three has the same man head-coaching both baseball and football. It has to be one of the few such situations in the country at a school as big and as serious about sports as Hempfield.” Tom was a teacher in the Hempfield School District for 33 years until his retirement in 2007.

Since 2010, he has been an assistant football coach at Manheim Central, where he coaches the inside linebackers. Tom is a member of the Manheim Touchdown Club. He was inducted into the Susquehanna Valley Chapter of the PA Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Hempfield School District Sports Hall of Fame on October 3, 2015.

Tom and his wife, Judy, live in Centerville. They have two children, Jonathan and Jennifer.