Only Lance Mehl Until Penn State Football

If you've watched any of the 1978 or 1979 Nittany Lions, you'll quickly notice #56, Lance Mehl.  The All-American inside linebacker was the largest defender Penn State put on the field.  He was huge.

Curiously, the old programs list him at 6'3", 231 lbs, which must have been his actual, real-life, barefoot-and-naked  height and weight.  Since the 1990's, program "measurements" are done wearing 5" cleats, in full pads, following an all-you-can-eat steak and seafood buffet.  [Typical program "measurements" say Mike Archie was 5'8", David Macklin 5'10", and Curt Enis 6'2" - no, no, and no.]

Using science, we can conservatively estimate Lance Mehl's modern-equivalent program height and weight as a nimble 7'2", 465lbs.  Certainly he played that size, dominating the area between the tackles at a time when 75% of all offensive plays were runs between the tackles.

That's right.  Power runs between the tackles, friends.  Manly men, playing a man's game, with fists and blood and puke and snot.  Suffering heat stroke or liver failure as a result of dehydration in the sweltering July practices proved to coaches that you put the team before yourself.  Water breaks made weak wills.  We didn't need giant scoreboards, because keeping score was easy - the first to be beaten unconscious, lost.

Coarsely filtered, over caffeinated American violence cleanly and efficiently adjudicated that most highly prized quality of manhood - toughness.  The memory swells every man's red-white-and-blue heart with pride.