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ning from 1937 to 1974. And before he died on Dec. 22, 2012, at age 96 at his retirement home in Lakeland, Fla., Cherundolo was the oldest living Steeler and the fourth-oldest former NFL player. Cherundolo never played on a winning team at Penn State and was never more than an honorable mention AllAmerican. However, two future Hall of Fame coaches whose teams competed against him in the 1930s knew how talented he was, and so did sportswriters who covered the team. When Pitt's Jock Sutherland became Cherundolo's head coach with the Steelers in 1946, he told Les Biederman of the Pittsburgh Press that "Cherundolo is one of the best centers I ever saw in college and he loves to play football." Cornell's Carl Snavely called Cherundolo "the best center in the east" in 1936, adding, "I can't understand the so-called experts leaving the Penn State captain off the All-American teams." Years later, Chet Smith, the esteemed sports editor of the Pittsburgh Press who observed Penn State football for four decades, put Cherundolo on the All–Time Penn State teams he selected in 1950 and 1967. The lack of national recognition for Cherundolo undoubtedly stemmed from the deterioration of the football program in his era because of a new de-emphasis policy for all Penn State intercollegiate athletics that began in 1928. That was the detrimental period when the administration eliminated all financial aid for athletes, reduced spending on intercollegiate sports, downgraded the football schedule and banned all pregame scouting. The restrictions quickly turned Penn State from an elite football program into an also-ran. That's when two men – Casey Jones in western Pennsylvania and James Gilligan in the hard coal region – led a small but dedicated group of alumni to circumvent the rules to help Bob Higgins, a two-time All-America end for Penn State who had become head coach in 1930. Fundamentally, they recruited kids from the mining and steel mill towns who couldn't afford college. Then they obtained jobs for them in fraternities, restaurants and other businesses to pay for tuition, books, housing and meals. Cherundolo fit the mold. His hometown was Old Forge, and he was the epitome of high school players in the heart of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre coal region during the debilitating Depression era – tough, scrappy, streetsmart and eager to go to college instead of into the mines. The Jones-Gilligan recruiting strategy was just beginning to take effect when Gilligan, the principal at Dunmore High School, brought Cherundolo on campus in 1933. In Higgins' first three years as head coach, Penn State had its worst stretch of losing since the beginning of football in 1887, finishing 3-4-2 (1930), 2-8 (1931) and 2-5 (1932). Although ineligible for varsity competition as a freshman, Cherundolo played freshman football, basketball, soccer and lacrosse and watched as the 1933 Nittany Lions began turning the program around with a 3-3-1 record. As an 18-year-old sophomore in 1934, Cherundolo supplanted another Gilligan recruit – junior Jim O'Hora of Dunmore – as the starting center in the fourth game of the season. O'Hora would never start again but would eventually become a long-serving Penn State assistant coach. In the 1950s, he was the father figure to a young assistant named Joe Paterno, who lived with the O'Hora family for nine years. Higgins told reporters the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Cherundolo was not only the best linebacker he had seen in years, but also seemed to make everyone around him play better. That included a senior end from Scranton who went out for the football team for the first time – Hugh Rodham. Rodham would go on to have a daughter named Hillary Rodham Clinton, who would become first lady of the United States and secretary of state. After successive 4-4 seasons in 1934 and 1935, Penn State stumbled in 1936 when Cherundolo was the captain. The Lions went 3-5 but defeated favored Bucknell, 14-0, for the first time in 10 years in the final game of the year, and Cherundolo's teammates carried him off Beaver Field on their shoulders. Some sportswriters believed that injuries and player dissension early in the season spoiled what should have been a winning year. But backto-back late-season losses to top-10 rivals Penn and Pitt might have kept Cherundolo from being recognized as a first-team All-American. Ridge Riley, who would become a Penn State legend himself as the creator of the weekly Football Alumni Letter and author of the definitive history of Penn State football, "Road to Number One," was then the school's sports information director. In his book, Riley aptly described Cherundolo's playing style: "Backing up the line invincibly, he'd call out to his young linemen: 'You guys just take somebody out – anybody – I'll make the tackle.' He'd get up from a pile, shaking his head to clear the stars away, while the hovering sophomores implored him, 'Don't get hurt, team.' " Keep in mind, this was the age of the run-oriented single-wing formation and smash-mouth power football. Players had to play both offense and defense, and no one wore facemasks. Centers were also linebackers, in the thick of the fiercest action on both offense and defense, and Cherundolo was a 60minute man who rarely left the field. With his bachelor's degree in physical education, and a couple of years later a master's from Penn State in exercise physiology, Cherundolo was destined to become a teacher and coach. Little did he know, however, in the spring of 1937 that his career would be in the National Football League. Pro football was still struggling for recognition when Cherundolo signed on with the newest NFL team, the Cleveland Rams, and it seemed like a perfect fit. The Rams' coach was Hugo Bezdek, the man Bob Higgins had succeeded as Penn State's head coach in 1930 and who had remained at Penn State as dean of the physical education department and athletic director until 1936. No one knew more about Cherundolo's talents then Bezdek. "He's one of the greatest players I've seen in several years," Bezdek told Cleveland reporters as the Rams' season was getting under way. According to the Penn State Collegian, sportswriters covering the NFL were calling Cherun-

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