Joseph Keith Lightner (July 25, 1900 – June 6, 1988) 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 with ...

player and coach. He served as the 18th head football coach at

Dickinson College , mottoeng = Freedom is made safe through character and learning , established = , type = Private liberal arts college , endowment = $645.5 million (2022) , president = J ...

Carlisle, Pennsylvania Carlisle is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2020 United States census, ...

and he held that position for three seasons, from 1923 until 1925. His record at Dickinson was 17–7–2. Lightner took over the second half of the 1923 season after B. Russell Murphy resigned with an 0–2 start.Dickinson College Football Records
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Professional athlete

Lightner played football professionally in 1922 for the

Frankford Yellow Jackets The Frankford Yellow Jackets were a professional American football team, part of the National Football League from 1924 to 1931, although its origin dates back to as early as 1899 with the Frankford Athletic Association. The Yellow Jackets won ...

before the team joined 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 ...

. He also played baseball professionally for the Reading team in the International League from 1921 (as "William Lightner") to 1925.

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* * 1900 births 1988 deaths American football halfbacks Baseball outfielders Dickinson Red Devils football coaches Frankford Yellow Jackets players Harrisburg Senators players Penn State Nittany Lions baseball players Penn State Nittany Lions football players Reading Keystones players People from Perry County, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania Baseball players from Pennsylvania {{1920s-collegefootball-coach-stub