George Michael Savitsky (July 30, 1924 – September 4, 2012) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

offensive tackle in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

for the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...

. Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Savitsky grew up in Camden, New Jersey and played football at Camden High School where he was captain of the undefeated squad in 1942. He played college football at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

where he excelled as both an offensive and defensive tackle, and became the only four-year All American of the 20th century. At Penn, he was a member of

Phi Sigma Kappa Phi Sigma Kappa (), colloquially known as Phi Sig or PSK, is a men's social and academic Fraternities and sororities, fraternity with approximately 74 List of Phi Sigma Kappa chapters#List of Chapters, active chapters and provisional chapters in ...

. During the summers of his college years, the versatile Savitsky taught swimming and diving at the Flanders Hotel pools in Ocean City, NJ. He was drafted by the Eagles in the fifth round of the 1947 NFL Draft. Savitsky was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1991. Savitsky, at and , is considered one of best two-way tackles in the history of college football. While at Penn, he helped to mentor fellow college All-Americans Tony Minisi and college and pro football Hall of Famer Chuck Bednarik. Due to the low pay scale in the NFL in the late 1940s, he retired from pro football and entered dental school; thereafter he enjoyed a long and successful career as a dentist in southern New Jersey. For years, Savitsky was a member of the "Mungermen," a group of former Penn players under Hall-of-Fame coach George Munger who gathered periodically on game days. A resident of

Ocean City, New Jersey Ocean City is a city in Cape May County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the principal city of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Cape May County and is part of the Philadelphia- Wilmington- Camden, ...

, he died of pneumonia in Somers Point, New Jersey in 2012 at the age of 88.Mazda, Jason
"Late ex-Eagle tackle George Savitsky, of Ocean City, an All-American at Penn, humble about football exploits"
''

The Press of Atlantic City ''The Press of Atlantic City'' is the fourth-largest daily newspaper in New Jersey. Originally based in Pleasantville, it is the primary newspaper for southeastern New Jersey and the Jersey Shore. The newspaper designated market runs from Ware ...

'', October 3, 2012. Accessed November 6, 2018. "Football was never the No. 1 priority for Savitsky, a longtime Ocean City resident who passed away Sept. 4 at 88 from pneumonia."

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* 1924 births 2012 deaths All-American college football players Camden High School (New Jersey) alumni People from Ocean City, New Jersey Players of American football from New York City Players of American football from Camden, New Jersey American football offensive tackles Penn Quakers football players Philadelphia Eagles players College Football Hall of Fame inductees Deaths from pneumonia in New Jersey {{offensive-lineman-1920s-stub