Edward F. McGinley III, the former University of Pennsylvania football player who had served on the National Football Foundation Board of Directors since 1987, passed away Nov. 11, 2018. The Westfield, New Jersey, native was 91 years old.
McGinley served as a full member of the NFF Board from 1987-2014 before becoming a Director Emeritus in 2015. He left a lasting impact on the NFF in numerous ways, including serving as a longtime member of the NFF Finance Committee.
"I got to know Ed over the years, and he loved everything about the NFF because of the role football played in his life and his family's life," said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. "When his family would gather at their home in Villanova, Pennsylvania, the conversations often included a tribute to football and the opportunities that it had created for the family. His passing is a huge loss for us. Our thoughts are with his wife, Kate, and their family."
McGinley and his two brothers all played college football at Penn, following in the footsteps of their dad Ed McGinley II, who also played for the Quakers and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979. McGinley lettered at Penn in 1949, a season which included wins over Columbia, Dartmouth, Navy and Princeton on the team led by Hall of Fame Coach George Munger.
The father and his three sons also all had enormously successful careers on Wall Street, and McGinley credited football for changing his family's life as the descendants of a grocer who delivered food by horse and wagon after emigrating from Ireland.
"Edward wanted his children and all of his descendants to really appreciate that their success came from a place, which was football," said Kate McGinley, his wife. "He wanted them to understand that their success was because a longtime ago their grandfather played football and was seen as something special… All of this, your beautiful home, your educations, it all started with football. He wanted them to appreciate that a lot of what they have today was hard fought. And it took guts and grit, and this was not trust fund stuff. It was a lot of hard work that got passed along. And the underpinning of it all was that this kid from Chester, Pennsylvania, learned to play football. That's the story."
McGinley graduated from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in economics. While at Penn, he was a member of the Friars Senior Society and the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Prior to enrolling at Penn, McGinley had served his country in the United States Navy as a seaman during World War II.
McGinley began his successful business career in the insurance industry with Marsh & McLennan before becoming an account executive with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith in Buffalo, New York. Shortly thereafter, he became the assistant vice president of Bache & Co. in Philadelphia and then, in 1970, co-founded Carroll, McEntee & McGinley, Inc., a dealer in US. Government Securities.
In 1979, McGinley became the chairman of the board of directors of Carroll, McEntee & McGinley, a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The C.M.&M. Group was eventually sold to Marine Midland Bank.
McGinley became a senior account executive for the investment company of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, which was purchased by Goldman Sachs in 2000. He retired from Goldman Sachs in 2004 as a vice president in the fixed income division.
In addition to the NFF and Penn, his many associations over the years included the Cancer Research Foundation of America, the Racquet Club of Philadelphia, the Bond Club of Philadelphia, and the Merion Cricket Club. McGinley and his brother Gerry established the Edward F. McGinley, Jr. Scholarship Fund at Penn, which funded the scholarship of football players enrolled in the Wharton School.
He is survived by his wife Kate and his four children: Nancy McGinley Gardner, Edward F. McGinley IV (Geraldine), Douglas M. McGinley and Kathleen McGinley Whiteman (Robert) as well as 13 grandchildren, one great grandchild and his youngest brother Richard.
