Edward Knouse

A former Sportsman of the Year, Eddie has organized and played on numerous sports teams in Berks County, including baseball, basketball, bowling, football, softball, swimming, tennis and track. He was still active as a player into his mid-70s. He was a player-coach for the Croll and Keck basketball team that won numerous City League championships, compiling a 343-123 record (.736 average). Knouse helped raise more than $2,000 to send Reading’s Barry Siekierka to the International Olympics for the Deaf in Helsinki, Finland, in the early 1960s. Eddie had been active in civic, religious and sports activities for 60 years. He served longer, in more activities, with more organizations than is possible to list here. He served in 25 different organizations for a total of 400 years. That is quite a lifetime. He participated or served as a player, coach, manager, organizer, promoter, secretary, president, editor of a magazine and a church elder. He sang in two church choirs and played the drums with several organizations. He would have told you that he was “only a ham and egger” in some of them. We know that he was proficient in all of them and outstanding in most of them. He spent his youth as a genuine American boy. He lived his adult years as an exemplary American Christian gentleman.

Deceased