November 27, 1919

(Yeah, ok so I'm a day late. Even BSD takes Thanksgiving off.)

The traditional Thanksgiving Day game between Pitt and Penn State was considered a tossup for the first time in years. Pitt was enjoying a six game winning streak over State and had not lost a home game in five years. But Penn State was riding a four game winning streak over some impressive names like Lehigh, Penn, and Cornell. (Trust me. Back then this was the modern day equivalent of beating Ohio State, Florida, and Texas in successive weeks.)

While scouting for the game, PSU team captain Bob Higgins noticed the Pitt players liked to rush nine or ten players on punts deep inside of enemy territory. So he devised a play to counter this and worked on it with the Penn State punter, Harold Hess. But due to his rocky relationship with head coach Hugo Bezdek, Higgins and Hess practiced the play on their own. One day during practice leading up to the game Bezdek noticed Higgins and Hess practicing the play and questioned them on what they were doing. Higgins explained the play to Bezdek who responded, "It sounds okay, but next time let me know what's going on around here."

Early in the game Pitt was driving for a score, but Penn State stuffed a fourth down rushing attempt at the six yard line and took over on downs. Higgins decided this was a perfect opportunity for "the play." It was common strategy back then to immediately punt out of poor field position without even attempting to achieve a first down. So Pitt had no suspicions of what was about to happen.

Penn State lined up in punt formation and Pitt moved in for a block attempt. The center snapped the ball, and Pitt rushed ten players leaving only one player back to receive the punt. Hess caught the snap in his endzone and drifted to his right. Then he lobbed a perfect pass to a wide open Higgins who had pretended to whiff on his block and released down field. He caught the ball at the ten yard line, and with end George Brown out in front to block, Higgins ran 92 yards for the touchdown. The Penn State fans in attendance went delirious.

Penn State grabbed the early momentum and went on to win the game 20-0. The play "took the heart out of Pitt, who appeared helpless from that stage on," wrote the Public Ledger, "There have been few games in the last quarter century where the Blue and Gold was beaten in the first two minutes of play."

Penn State finished the season 7-1 and many writers called them the champions of the east over Syracuse, Colgate, and Harvard. Higgins would go on to be named Penn State's first two-time Walter Camp All-American. The 92 yard reception is still the longest pass play in Penn State history.

(HT to the always amazing Penn State Encyclopedia by Lou Prato.)

The year was 1912. Penn State was coming off of an 8-0-1 season in 1911, their greatest record to date. They had made the jump from a respectable team to an eastern power that was beating traditional eastern powers like Pitt, Penn, and Cornell. Under the direction of head coach Bill Hollenback Penn State was facing unprecedented success. But Hollenback had bigger ambitions. He wanted to take Penn State from being an eastern power to a national power. To do that, he looked west.

Ohio State was set to join the Western Conference (which would later become the Big Ten Conference) starting the following year. While they had enjoyed several successful years in the Ohio Athletic Conference, many questioned their worthiness to join the Western Conference due to the poor level of competition. Ohio State coach John Richards felt that a win over an eastern team would give his team more prestige and quiet their critics.

So on November 16, 1912 the two schools of Penn State and Ohio State met for the first time in Columbus, Ohio not realizing how intense this rivalry would become nearly 100 years later.

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BSD Readers,

This post was written by Jon Johnston of SBNation's fantastic Nebraska Corn Husker blog, Corn Nation. Jon is an avid readers of sports books and likes to review them on his blog. He recently read Playing for Paterno and wanted to offer his review for us to read. So this post was written by Jon in his own words. I hope you enjoy it.

 

-BSD Mike

"Playing for Paterno - A Father And Son’s Recollections of Playing for JoePa" was released last season by Triumph Books. It is father Charlie Pittman’s and son Tony Pittman’s recollection of their playing days at Penn State. Both Pittmans played for undefeated Paterno teams that were not awarded national championships, Charlie in 1969, Tony in 1994.

Rather than be content with the telling of ‘glory stories’ in chronological fashion, the book doubles as a recipe for success in life, particularly in business. As an example, here are some of the chapter titles, along with an overview:

- Managing Adversity
The chapter relates how Charlie and Tony dealt with becoming starters, what encouraged and disappointed them. It includes Charlie Pittman’s frank discussion of how and why he was fired early in his business career and how he dealt with it.

- Goal Setting the Penn State Way
Talks about how great things don’t just happen, they happen because of preparation. Particularly interesting is Charlie pointing out that in an era of psychedelia and pastels, Paterno chose to keep the team’s uniform plain, and that choice was part of an overall plan for success.

- Your Only Two Choices Are to Get Better or Get Worse
Charlie Pittman talks about 1968 - the football season and the social upheaval. He then relates those to a "blue line" that Paterno painted around the football practice field. The idea behind the blue line was that you could not cross that line without being 100% focused on playing football.

- Looking for Paterno
Focused heavily on Joe Paterno, and relates that to finding a mentor and a champion - someone who will help you with your career or your life. There is a fair amount of discussion around whether or not Paterno should name a replacement.

‘Playing for Paterno’ isn’t so heavy on the "what you need to do to be successful" that it loses it’s football audience. There’s plenty of football, woven carefully around the ‘success’ theme. It’s also not so heavily filled with romanticism that it becomes unbearable. It pulls off the balance between football and motivation pretty well.

Other items of interest:

- The contrast between Charlie Pittman’s days playing for a Joe Paterno that just became a head coach versus Tony Pittman’s days when Paterno had long established his philosophies. For example, Paterno’s early "Grand Experiment" was going against the grain of the time in recruiting good players who were also good students. His challenge now - recruiting players who still believe in old fashioned values.

- The contrast between the social upheaval faced by Charlie in 1969 and the different challenges faced by his son Tony. Football books are always better when they’re placed in the context of the times in which they happened, something else done very well here.

- The ‘footballness’ of the book. I like the stories related by both Pittmans about their football experiences, whether they were about how or why Paterno made the choices he did or what each player faced in practice or in the games they played.

- The translation of motivation from football to successful businessman - the idea that "what I learned from Joe Paterno helped me be successful". Motivational books can be pretty cheesy, but they can be beneficial in that they fill in the gaps in your life if you’re missing something. They can also provide inspiration if you’re feeling like you’re not getting anywhere or you’re stuck in a rut. In ‘Playing for Paterno’ you get motivation through college football. What could be better?

If you like Penn State football (and if you don’t, why are you here?), you’ll like the book. If you like motivational books, you’ll like the book. The combination is very well done.

This is Part II of a series exploring the long time rivalry between Penn State and Syracuse. To read part one go here.

Yesterday we explored the early years of the rivalry between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Syracuse Orange. Up until 1950 they were just two powerful eastern teams that played each other. It wasn't until the 1950's that the gloves came off and this casual series blossomed into a full blown rivalry.

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This is Part One of a two part series examining the rivalry between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Syracuse Orange.

When I was a young boy growing up in the 80's I never understood our rivalry with Syracuse. But I knew there were three teams my grandfather hated more than any other: Pitt, Notre Dame, and Syracuse. I was young and you couldn't get all the games on television back then, so my obsession with all things Penn State football didn't really kick in until around 1986. It was only four years later until the Nittany Lions and the Orange played their last game in 1990.

As I cruised the message boards and blogs this week it has been interesting to see the different levels of anticipation. Older fans have had this game circled on their calendar since the ink dried on the contract a few years ago and are really looking forward to putting the hurt on our old nemisis. But I've also seen inquisitive younger fans struggle to understand why we should care about this game any more than Temple or Coastal Carolina. In fact this week our own Anthony Scirrotto had this to say.

How aware is the team of the history of the rivalry between Penn State and Syracuse?

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with the rivalry. Before practice yesterday, coach Paterno talked to us about how big this game is. From their standpoint, there's going to be a lot of people there, very famous people. Jim Brown's going to be there. It's going to be a packed house. He mentioned other names that I don't really remember but he said it's going to be a big game.

To a certain extent I include myself in this group of ignorant fans. As I said above, I never really lived during the glory days of this rivalry. So I started reading up on it earlier this week. Soon I realized this is a rivalry that has it all. A long history. Frustrating losses. Gut wrenching upsets. Demoralizing beatdowns. Epic battles for eastern supremacy. Biased officiating. Animosity between coaches. And even fist fights on the field. For younger fans like myself, this is a story that needs to be told and passed down through generations. This post will attempt to do that. I only hope I can do it justice.

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September 8, 1984

A fan stood up from his seat in Beaver Stadium and sat back down. The guy next to him stood up and sat down. Then the guy next to him stood up and sat down. And before you knew it the capacity crowd of 84,409 completed the first ever successful wave around Beaver Stadium.

Current offensive line coach Dick Anderson was walking the sidelines that day, but he was standing on the other side of the field in his debut as the head coach at Rutgers. D.J. Dozier had a 43 yard touchdown in the first quarter, but the game was tied 10-10 at halftime. The second half was a defensive struggle with Rutgers only gaining four rushing yards and completing only five passes. Penn State didn't do much better. Late in the third quarter the Lions were stopped on a fourth and two attempt at the Rutgers four yard line. But Penn State defensive end Dan Morgan turned around and sacked Rutgers quarterback Rusty Hochberg in the endzone. Nick Gancitano added a 36-yard field goal in the fourth quarter giving Penn State a slim 15-10 lead. Punter John Bruno took an intentional safety in the final seconds to complete a 15-12 Penn State victory.

The fans probably did a lot of waves to keep themselves entertained that season as the team was not very competitive. Disappointing losses to Texas, Alabama, West Virginia, and Notre Dame capped off a disappointing 6-5 season. After State suffered an embarrassing 31-11 season ending loss to Pitt in Beaver Stadium, Paterno called out his team saying they played like "a bunch of babies." It must have worked, because the next season Penn State won all 11 regular season games, but lost to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl for the national championship.

August 25, 1918

On this day in 1918 Penn State hired Hugo Bezdek, manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates in Major League Baseball, as the head football coach and Director of Physical Education and Intercollegiate Sports (modern day Athletic Director). He would go on to coach football at Penn State for 12 years and also coached the basketball team in 1919 as well as the baseball team from 1920-1930. He stepped down from coaching in 1930 but continued to serve as athletic director until 1937.

Hugo Bezdek - Football coach from 1918-1929

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August 10, 1927

The newly organized Board of Athletic Control (modern day Athletic Department) ended all financial aid for student athletes starting with the freshman class of 1928 in attempt to focus more attention on the university's academic reputation. They also recommend athletic officials and coaches "not scout opponents' games regardless of scouting policies of opponents." The results are disasterous setting the football program back 30 years.

Many of Penn State's opponents like Pitt, Syracuse, West Virginia, and Bucknell did not adopt similar policies putting Penn State at a serious disadvantage. In 1935 head coach Bob Higgins found a way to get around the university policy by offering players jobs cleaning and cooking for fraternities in order to pay for their educations.

The Penn State administration would continue to deny granting scholarships to athletes until May of 1949 when 100 athletic scholarships are approved by the Board of Trustees. The following year 30 scholarships were set aside exclusively for football. Throughout the 50's and 60's the teams led by Rip Engle and Joe Paterno would work tirelessly to gain respect and return Penn State to the Eastern football power it was prior to 1925.

July 18, 1918

Lt. Levi Lamb, a lineman and three year letter winner on the teams of 1912-1914, is killed near Soissons, France, while leading his army platoon against a German stronghold. He is one of two former players to die in World War I along with 1912 teammate Red Bebout who is killed on a French battlefield on September 29, 1918.

In 1952 Penn State's first student athlete scholarship fund was founded by the Lion's Paw Alumni Association. The endowment was named the Levi Lamb Fund in his honor and still exists to this day.

- Information obtained from the Penn State Football Encyclopedia by Lou Prato

July 1, 1994

Jim Tarman retires as Athletic director and is succeeded by former football walk-on Tim Curley.

July 1, 1980

J.T. White, the last assistant coach from the Rip Engle era except for Joe Paterno, retires after 26 years of coaching defensive ends.

July 1, 1974

Penn State formally withdraws from the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference in a dispute over ECAC financial arrangements with 214 member schools. Penn State athletics refuses to pay 1/5th of the ECAC's total budget plus ten percent of all television and bowl revenues.

- Information obtained from the Penn State Football Encyclopedia by Lou Prato