Passages in quotations are taken from "The Old Tin Cup," a paper written by Gettysburg student Nicholas Scerbo in February 2010.

When the Muhlenberg football team returns from its bye week to play at Gettysburg tomorrow, it will be competing for more than a Centennial Conference win against an undefeated opponent. The winner of the game will receive the Old Tin Cup, a trophy whose origins go back more than a century.
 
In 1911, Gettysburg football player Ezra Hespenheidt "faced off against his brother Jeremiah, a Muhlenberg student, in the annual game between the two schools. Their father, a poor Pennsylvania Dutch farmer from just outside Allentown, had fallen in love with the sport while watching his sons play against each other, and decided to award his 'most prized possession,' a tin cup that had been in the family for generations, to whichever son prevailed in their final game against each other.
 
"The game was tightly played, and neither team was able to score early. With time running out before the end of the first half, Ezra Hespenheidt managed to convert a field goal but was injured only a few plays later and had to be helped off the field. In the purest spirit of what The Gettysburgian described as 'brotherly rivalry,'" Jeremiah left the Muhlenberg bench at the break, grabbed his father in the stands, and insisted that the cup be awarded to Ezra in honor of his gallant play during the first half. 
 
"The father complied, and the two made their way to the Gettysburg bench, where they bestowed the precious heirloom upon Ezra. His field goal proved to be the only score in the game; Gettysburg prevailed, 3-0. 
 
Although he realized that this game was the last in which he and his brother would face each other on the playing fields, Ezra felt that the spirit of their rivalry was something worth preserving. Rather than keep the cup as a decoration, he instead decided to donate it to the two schools as a permanent and travelling trophy, which he hoped would inspire Gettysburg and Muhlenberg to enjoy the same spirit of friendly competition that had existed between him and his brother. He asked that a halftime ceremony at each game honor the most outstanding player of the first half, in the same way that his brother had honored him by surrendering his claim on the family's most prized possession."
 
The Muhlenberg-Gettysburg series lasted only two more years, and when it resumed in 1921, the Tin Cup was forgotten. And so it would have remained but for longtime Gettysburg dean Wilbur Tilberg discovering a letter from Ezra Hespenheidt while cleaning out his personal file in preparation for his approaching retirement in October 1954.
 
"Tilberg contacted Muhlenberg's dean, Henry Richards, and asked him to search for the tin cup itself, which he believed would still be on the Muhlenberg campus. Richards searched basements and trophy cases and managed to find the original cup, exactly as Tilberg had hoped.
 
Excited and intrigued by this discovery, The Gettysburgian ran the story as front-page news on October 14, two weeks before the Homecoming game against Muhlenberg, and then again the following week. The October 21 issue of the paper, in fact, carried a photograph of the cup, and reported that The Gettysburgian and the Muhlenberg Weekly had worked together to mount the previously unadorned cup on a wooden base, plated with silver on which the score of each game would be inscribed. It was to be an annual tradition, a permanent part of Gettysburg's homecoming festivities."
 
It's a neat story of rival schools cooperating to perpetuate a long-lost tradition started by brothers playing for opposite sides. There's just one small catch: It's not true.
 
"Although Gettysburg did defeat Muhlenberg 3-0 in 1911, and a field goal shortly before halftime provided the difference, the hero of the game was not Ezra Hespenheidt." In fact, there is no record of anyone named Ezra Hespenheidt ever attending Gettysburg.
 
Ezra Hespenheidt was a fictional character created in 1954 by the editor-in-chief and sports editor of The Gettysburgian in an attempt to "make the annual game with Muhlenberg a focal point of the season." With the assistance of Tilberg and Richards, The Gettysburgian and the Muhlenberg Weekly "agreed to jointly sponsor the trophy in hopes of creating a new tradition."
 
It worked for a while. The Tin Cup was presented to the winner of the Gettysburg-Muhlenberg game, and an MVP was honored at halftime, every year from 1954 to 1964, when the two schools headed in different directions. Gettysburg joined the University Division of the Middle Atlantic Conference and Muhlenberg went to the College Division. The teams did not play each other again until 1981, two years before both schools became charter members of the Centennial Conference.
 
And so the fabricated tradition was reborn. The Tin Cup was discovered in a trophy case in Gettysburg's gym and presented following the 1981 game. It continued to be awarded until the mid-1990s, but the tradition never really took hold for either school, and eventually it faded away.
 
Now it's back for the third (or fourth) time. Rivalry games on crisp October afternoons are part of what make college football special, and in order to boost this one, the athletic departments of both schools and head coaches Mike Donnelly and Barry Streeter agreed to revive the Old Tin Cup this year. The trophy has been refurbished, the winner of each year's game has been inscribed, and the cup is ready to be handed out late tomorrow afternoon.
 
And when it is, somewhere, Ezra Hespenheidt will beam with pride.