Lehigh University Athletics
Leckonby Reunion
4/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Athletics
Leckonby Reunion
Over 100 Lehigh football players met to honor former longtime head coach and athletic director William B. Leckonby on Saturday, September 30, 2006 for the dedication of Lehigh’s football locker rooms at the A. Haigh Cundey Varsity House. The Athletics Partnership sponsored event was held in conjunction with the 1961 Lambert Cup Team reunion.
As Lehigh’s “winningest” football coach with an 85-53-5 mark for 16 seasons between 1946 and 1961, Leckonby coached the 1050 Lehigh team to the school’s only perfect-record season in 109 years of football. His 1957 squad won the first Lambert Cup, when it was established for medium-sized school gridiron eastern supremacy. Lehigh won the Lambert Cup again in his final season on the sideline in 1961.
Leckonby came to Lehigh in 1946, following Naval duty in World War II. He ranks as one of St. Lawrence University’s all-time greatest triple threat backs and played for Jock Sutherland’s Brooklyn Dodgers in the National Football League.
As director athletics at Lehigh from 1962 through 1984 Leckonby oversaw a period of vast expansion at the university which included the development of the Murray H. Goodman campus and the initiation of women’s intercollegiate athletic programs.
In honor of his impact as an athlete and legendary collegiate coach, Leckonby was rewarded with inductions into the St. Lawrence and Lehigh Athletics Halls of Fame.
Following the reunion and dedication team members attended the Lehigh vs. Harvard football game at Goodman stadium. Members of Leckonby teams from different eras were honored at a halftime ceremony.
For information on future athletic reunions and events, contact Lehigh Athletics Partnership Director Barb Turanchik ’75 at
