Blue White Illustrated

T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 1 9 >> career rushing leader with 3,932 yards on 686 attempts from 2007-10. Wide re- ceiver DaeSean Hamilton of Fredericks- burg caught 214 passes from 2014-17, breaking the record of 179 receptions held by another Virginian, Deon Butler of Woodbridge. (Bobby Engram, a South Carolina native, still holds the career records for receiving yardage with 3,026 and receiving touchdowns with 31.) Then there is tailback D.J. Dozier, the =rst of the Virginia contingent to be a =rst-team All-American when he was the prime o?ensive threat in the Nittany Lions' drive to their second national championship in 1986. Dozier, who hails from Virginia Beach, is the only Penn State player to lead the team in rushing for four years, totaling 3,227 yards on 625 carries, and he still ranks seventh in ca- reer rushing yardage. Three Virginians preceded Dozier, but the =rst two are virtually unknown to Penn State fans. A spot search of selected varsity rosters over the years since 1887 turned up no one from Virginia until red- shirt sophomore o?ensive guard Lou Bartek of Hampton in 1980, followed in 1982 by redshirt sophomore wide receiver Kevin Campbell of McLean and corner- back Du?y Cobbs of Alexandria. The search included rosters from 1945 through all the teams of the Rip Engle era (1950-65) and the undefeated seasons under Joe Paterno: 1968, '69 and '73, as well as the ill-fated 1978 team that lost the national title game to Alabama. The search also covered the World War II years when the military transferred students from other colleges in and out of many schools, including Penn State, throughout the fall, seemingly on a whim, as they awaited basic training or active duty. Again, none of those players are known to have been from Virginia. An examination of the rosters in the Penn State football program for its game against Virginia at Beaver Field on Oct. 9, 1954, yielded a fascinating result. That was the =rst time the teams had played since the inaugural game in 1893. The Cavaliers' 42-man roster included 22 players from Virginia and =ve from Penn- sylvania. Meanwhile, on Penn State's 54- man roster were 49 players from Pennsyl- vania and =ve from other states. Three of those =ve out-of-state players became historic =gures: tackle Rosey Grier (a fu- ture actor-musician and political activist) and quarterback Milt Plum (a future 13- year NFL quarterback) were from New Jersey, and end Jesse Arnelle (a future na- tionally renown attorney and president of the Penn State board of trustees) was from New York. By the time the Lions played Virginia the next season at Rich- mond's City Stadium, Grier and Arnelle had graduated. Penn State won both games rather handily, and the schools didn't meet again until 1988. Penn State did play an- other team from Virginia before 1988: William & Mary in 1922, '52, '57 and '84, winning all four games. A check of William & Mary's 42-man roster in the 1952 game program found 20 players from Virginia and eight from Pennsylvania. That included junior back John Bednarik of Bethlehem, Pa. – the younger brother of the famous Penn and Philadelphia Ea- gles linebacker Chuck Bednarik – who was good enough the next season to earn honorable mention All-America honors from United Press International. The 1957 game program showed nearly an even split, with 14 players from Virginia and 13 from Pennsylvania. Shortly aAer Paterno became head coach in 1966, he decided to start a summer camp for high school players to enhance the Nittany Lions' recruiting. Whether he came up with the idea himself or borrowed it from another coaching peer is not clear. Today, there are summer football camps nationwide operated by colleges and inde- pendent groups. In Paterno's early years, the camps were o? campus at the Pioneer Ranch in Cook Forest, about 100 miles northwest of State College. By 1970, the Penn State camps were being run on cam- pus and were thriving. In the late 1970s, Paterno adjusted his recruiting strategy again by expanding the Nittany Lions' recruiting base to any area within an approximate 300-mile ra- dius of State College. The new blueprint put an increased emphasis on Virginia, Maryland and the Washington, D.C., area. John Rosenberg, the Lions' defen- sive backs coach and recruiting coordina- tor from 1974-77, was assigned that area. Former athletic director Tim Curley, who had joined the football sta? in 1977 as a graduate assistant, remembers Pa- terno promoting him to a part-time as- sistant coach position in the late summer of 1979 and sending him on the road. "I was sort of the recruiting coordinator," he said. "I took a car and went on the road for four months in the fall, starting in Vir- ginia. I went to high school practices and games and worked my way up from Vir- ginia." It wasn't until 1981 that a new re- cruiting coordinator was o@cially designated. The job went to Fran Ganter, who was also the running backs coach. The expanded recruiting policy, com- bined with the thriving summer camps, gave Penn State a presence in areas outside of the Northeastern and Ohio scholastic RECORD SETTER Royster owns the Nittany Lions' career record for rushing yards with 3,932 from 2007-10. Photo by Cyle Nune- maker

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