National Football Foundation

With over half a century dedicated to the game of football, Ed Schluntz has left a permanent impact on interscholastic football in Massachusetts. His efforts to better the Jack Grinold/Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the National Football Foundation make Schluntz a perfect selection for the Chapter Leadership Award for the Northeast Region in 2011.
 
"This is a very humbling experience," said Schluntz. "There are so many chapter members who contribute in so many ways that I feel as if I am receiving this honor on their behalf. Working as a team to support our efforts has the added benefit of keeping our sport important in the education process."
 
Schluntz graduated from Tufts University in 1951, and began his coaching career at Tufts in 1950. Upon graduation, he became a coach at Worcester Academy in 1951. He held positions with the football, basketball and baseball teams while teaching English. He moved to Brookline High School outside of Boston in 1954, working as a football coach and a teacher. Six years later, Schluntz became the school's head football coach, a position he held until 1982. He also served as Brookline's athletics director from 1970 to 1990. He left Brookline in 1990, becoming the head coach of the freshman football team at Harvard. Schluntz retired from coaching in 1994.
 
Schluntz's impact extended far beyond the schools he coached. He served as president of the Football Coaches Association in the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. As president, Schluntz conceptualized and implemented the MIAA's playoff system and formula for determining playoff teams. He also served as president of the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston, the Suburban League and the Windsor Club in Newton, Mass. A member of the '33' Touchdown Club of Boston, Schluntz claimed the organization's Lifetime Achievement Award in February.
 
A 1986 inductee into the Massachusetts Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, Schluntz won the Charles Linehan Memorial Award from the Massachusetts State Coaches Association in 1967, the Boston Globe Football Coach of the Year Award in 1968, the Distinguished Service Award from the MFCA in 1979 and the Massachusetts Athletic Director of the Year award in 1980. He has also been honored by the Brookline Kiwanis Club, the Tufts Jumbo Club, Brookline Rotary Club, and won the New England Football Officials award in 1971.
 
A charter member of the NFF Jack Grinold/Eastern Massachusetts Chapter, Schluntz has served on the chapter's board of directors since its inception in 1976. He has coordinated the chapter's scholar-athlete awards, expanding the chapter's honorees from 11 to 33 scholar-athletes. Schluntz won the chapter's Contribution to Amateur Football Award in 1978, and the award was named in his honor since 2008. Schluntz also spearheaded the effort to name the chapter after its founder, Jack Grinold, in 2007.
 
"The NFF means a commitment on the part of schools to a strong, competitive football program and an equally challenging academic environment," Schluntz explained. "Honoring accomplishments in both the classroom and on the field as we do in our awards program serves our students and society best."
 
Schluntz resides in Waban, Mass., with his wife Gloria. The couple has two children.