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POLITICAL FOOTBALL Nixon's intervention made headlines, but it wasn't the reason PSU missed its title shot in 1969 n the 50 years since Penn State missed out on playing for the national cham- pionship in the Cotton Bowl, a myth has been created that President Richard Nixon caused it to happen. It's true that Nixon did get involved in the closing days of the 1969 college football season and certainly influenced the final polls. However, what happened was much more complicated, primarily because of the archaic way bowl game matchups were arranged in that era. There also was the mistaken assumption that has been repeated over the years that certain pow- erhouse teams are too good to be upset. Then add to the mix the tense and some- times violent racial atmosphere in the country in the 1960s and the shocking assassination of an American president just a few miles from Cotton Bowl Sta- dium in 1963. In the end, the Penn State team has only itself to blame for not playing for the na- tional championship against Texas on New Year's Day. But this writer would have made the same decision the Nittany Lion players did in the now-controversial vote. I wasn't in the meeting, but I was close to the team, having covered Penn State football for a Pittsburgh television station since 1967. Since that fateful vote in 1969, I have researched what happened. Two of my books, The Penn State Football Encyclo- pedia and "100 Things Penn State Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die", ex- pand on what I found. Joe Paterno, assis- tant coach Dan Radakovich and Charlie Pittman, the All-America running back on the team, also touched on the subject in their autobiographies. I've also talked to several players and staff members about the controversy, and their memo- ries often conflict with each other, leav- ing what actually happened still unknown. I may not be the ultimate media authority on the subject, but I do know that Nixon did not cost Penn State the 1969 national championship. Paterno certainly had the perfect, if somewhat profane, response when Nixon tried to give Penn State a plaque "for hav- ing the longest winning streak in the country." The offer came in a telephone call from a White House aide. In what is now celebrated as the most momentous quote of Paterno's life, he said, "You tell the president to take that trophy and shove it." The catalyst that ignited the controver- sial players vote and Nixon's intrusion into college football was the manner in which postseason matchups were arranged before the advent of the Bowl Coalition in 1992. Until the early 1980s, the NCAA per- mitted bowl promoters to lock in their games in mid-November, two to four weeks before the end of the regular sea- son. In 1969, there were only four games on New Year's Day: the Rose, Orange, Sugar and Cotton bowls. They were the crème de la crème, followed by the Gator and then the Liberty, Bluebonnet and one-year-old Peach bowls played in mid- to late December. Two other games were further down the December pecking order and were considered minor bowls: the Tangerine (which would become the Citrus Bowl in 1983) and the Sun. That seems surreal given the abundance of postseason games today, with a mere six victories often proving sufficient to earn an invitation. Prior to 1968, Penn State had only played twice on New Year's Day: in the 1923 Rose Bowl and 1948 Cotton Bowl. It had also made a handful of appearances in December games, playing in the Lib- erty Bowl in 1959 and the Gator Bowl in 1961, '62 and '67. So, after a surprising undefeated season in 1968 in which Penn State won the Orange Bowl and finished No. 2 in the polls, Paterno's 1969 team was on its way toward another unbeaten year when the Cotton, Orange and Sugar bowls began talking to Penn State in early November. Bowl selection day was Satur- day, Nov. 15, and the week before, the Nit- tany Lions had an open date. 'They didn't want to go' What's been largely unacknowledged over the past 50 years is that most of the 13 seniors in the starting lineup, plus four other senior lettermen, did not want to go to another bowl game that season. The seniors were upset that they weren't home for Christmas in 1967 and '68 be- cause they had to practice in Florida be- fore the Gator and Orange bowls. "Being No. 1 didn't seem as important as being undefeated back then," Pittman recalled recently. He talked to Paterno during that open week. Paterno told him he would discuss it at a team meeting. Realizing the Cotton Bowl was in the mix, Pittman, who would become Penn State's first African American first-team All-America running back that season, began talking to his African American teammates about their possible bowl choices. He was well-respected by his white teammates and almost a father fig- ure to his black ones. That included un- derrated two-year starting linebacker Jim Kates and highly recruited sophomore running backs Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell, neither of whom had played in 1968 because freshmen were ineligible at the time. Four other African American underclassmen were on the official 1969 Penn State roster. In his autobiography "Paterno By the | I P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >>

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