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Annemarie Mountz BACK ON CAMPUS Coles returns to Penn State a few times a year. He���s shown here at a 2007 reunion of PSU���s ���82 championship team. Temple linebacker who hit him probably still doesn���t realize he helped the 1982 Penn State team win the national championship. Without the medical redshirt, Coles would have graduated. Therefore, no inspirational locker room talk after the Alabama loss. ���I would have been happy to complete that year,��� Coles said. ���Mike and I were sharing the [fullback] position. I can���t remember my stats at the time, but I was happy with the way things were going that season and was very disappointed when I was injured.��� Like many of his 1981 teammates and Paterno, Coles thinks that team could have won the national championship. ���I felt that team may have been a little more talented than ���82,��� he said. ���That was the [recruiting] class I came in with, and I was very familiar with a lot of those guys because I had started and played with them in high school all-star games, and against them. Guys like Mike Munchak, Mark Battaglia, Leo Wisniewski, Dave Opfar, Rich D���Amico and others. But I was absolutely happy to come back in ���82 because it gave me the opportunity to finish some things that I was unable to complete the prior year.��� Because he was still rehabilitating after his leg injury, he was limited to jogging in the spring, and by the time he was back in shape, junior Jon Williams had been moved to fullback and was the starter. Although primarily a blocker in 1982, Coles had a good season. ���Naturally, Curt was the lead back,��� he said, ���and Jon and I rotated back and forth, spelling Curt and sharing the fullback position. I would have liked to have had a bigger role, but given the level of talent we had, that didn���t work out as I would have liked.��� Coles carried the ball at least twice in every game and once again had his best day against North Carolina State, finishing with 45 yards on eight carries. He also caught passes in five games, with four for 29 yards against Syracuse. And that fateful ���82 Alabama game? Coles ran twice for 5 yards and caught two passes for 29 yards. Yes, he also played in the Sugar Bowl but posted no yardage, with a 3-yard gain on one play and a 3-yard loss on the other. After graduating with a degree in business management, Coles played one year with the Pittsburgh Maulers and another with the Birmingham Stallions in the now-defunct United States Football League before, as he put it, ���getting on with my life���s work.��� He started in the data center operations of Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh and then joined a company that was later taken over by Federal Express. That was 23 years ago, and Coles is now a FedEx SEE COLES PAGE 59

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