Blue White Illustrated

T H E 2 0 1 8 S E A S O N three Penn State players in one year, and none of them ever played a game. Tail- back Joe Tepsic, who had been severely wounded in World War II, was picked in the fourth round (122nd overall). Like Gajecki, Tepsic was a junior when he was chosen. He liked baseball better than football, and by early July he was playing with the Brooklyn Dodgers, who were in a tight pennant race with St. Louis. The Steelers' two other Penn State draftees that year – guard/fullback Mike Garbin- ski and tackle Marchi Marino – were also war veterans, and they, too, passed up the NFL. As I was becoming a devout Steelers fan in the late 1940s and early '50s, I didn't realize how bad the franchise was on the field. I was probably initially de- ceived as a naive 10-year-old in 1947 when the Steelers and Eagles tied for the NFL's Eastern Division title with identi- cal 8-4 records. That forced a one-game playoff for the right to meet the Chicago Cardinals for the NFL championship. Pittsburgh lost, 21-0, with Cherundolo at center alongside rookie guard Red Moore, who was captain of the Nittany Lions' 1946 team and another war vet- eran. I really didn't know about Moore until years later when I was doing re- search for my books and I interviewed him at his retirement home in Florida. Pittsburgh's middle man Of the Penn Staters who went on to play for the Steelers during that era, the one I remember best is Fran Rogel. A sophomore fullback on the great unde- feated 1948 Cotton Bowl team, Rogel was Penn State's career rushing leader for a while, having gained 1,496 yards from 1947-49, and he is still No. 26 all- time in the school record books. Rogel was the Steelers' eighth-round selection (100th overall) in 1950. He played eight years, mostly as the team's starting full- back and is still No. 12 on the list of Pittsburgh's top career rushers with 3,271 yards and 17 touchdowns on 900 attempts. However, it was his popular and appropriate nick- name, derived from a nursery rhyme, that made him beloved by Steeler fans of that generation: "Hi Did- dle, Diddle, Rogel Up the Middle." Rogel's Steelers were perennial losers. Those teams never fin- ished above .500 or placed better than third in the division. After that tie with the Eagles in 1947, Pittsburgh had only five winning seasons until coach Chuck Noll turned everything around in 1972, his fourth year with the team, thanks in part to a rookie running back from Penn State named Franco Harris and his now famous "Immaculate Reception." The Steelers were the lovable dregs of the NFL in that 25-year span because everyone in America seemed to like Art Rooney, the team's owner. He made any- one he met feel like a friend, including young, immature sportswriters. We al- ways addressed him as "Mr." out of re- spect. One of my most treasured pieces of memorabilia is a handwritten letter from Mr. Rooney that I received after writing to congratulate him on his elec- tion to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1964. That letter is framed and hanging on my office wall behind me as I write this. During the 1960s, the ultimate dream of a lifelong Steelers fan came true. I covered the team for various media from the Buddy Parker-Bobby Lane years through the hiring of Noll. In 1964, while working full-time in public relations, I was asked by the Steelers to be the public address announcer inside the press box at Pitt Stadium, where they played their home games. The team took me to Dallas as part of the media contingent for the last game of the regular season. Before future hall of famers Harris and linebacker Jack Ham helped transform Mr. Rooney's franchise into a dynasty, with four Super Bowl titles between 1974 and 1979, there were two special PUT A RING ON IT Franco Harris shows off the four Super Bowl rings he won with the Steelers from 1974 to 1979. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics

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