Joe Medwick was a star halfback with Franklin & Marshall's football teams from 1934 to 1936 and was a member of the college's Football Hall of Fame. Known as "Jumpin' Joe," he played in the most famous game in school history, the 1935 match with then-football powerhouse Fordham University at New York's Polo Grounds. F&M played well but lost, 14-7, to a team that included a guard named Vince Lombardi. After the game, a New York Times writer called the F&M team "the Diplomats," a label that has been the school's nickname ever since. Medwick was a graduate of Scranton High School and attended Wyoming Seminary.
Medwick was named to the Little All-America team following the 1936 season.
He was a 1937 graduate of F&M, and a 1941 graduate of Temple University Medical School. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, 8th Armored Division in Europe, earning a Bronze Star. He was discharged in 1946 as a lieutenant colonel. From 1946 to 1949, he was a doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Medwick was a physician in Lancaster from 1949 until his retirement in 1983. His office was at 326 N. Duke St. He was a member of the medical staff at Lancaster General Hospital. He had been a member of the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and American medical associations, the American Board of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and the Lancaster Country Club, serving on the board of governors.
He was a former president of the Ex-interns Association of Lancaster General Hospital, a past vice president of the Pennsylvania Scale Co., Leola, and a past member of the American Business Club. Medwick was general chairman of the enrollment campaign for the Lancaster YMCA in the early 1970s. In 1972, he was honored by the Lancaster Red Rose Chapter of Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. That same year, he received a special service award from the YMCA. In 1983, Medwick received a certificate of appreciation from the Lancaster County Association for the Blind for donating equipment.
