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IN A TIGHT SPOT Pat Freiermuth has a chance to join a long line of great Nittany Lion TEs ven before Pat Freiermuth an- nounced at the end of the 2019 reg- ular season that he will forgo the NFL Draft and return to Penn State for his junior year, he was worthy of consid- eration as one of the all-time best tight ends in Nittany Lion football history. That's my opinion as a Penn State sports historian who, over the decades, has watched many of the other contenders for this unofficial title. The tight end position as we know it today evolved in the 1950s but did not begin to fully develop until the NCAA overhauled its substitution rules in 1965. Out went the complicated requirements that forced players to play offense and defense. In came unlimited substitutions, creating specialists at every position. Some of Penn State's greatest players, such as Hall of Famer Dave Robinson and All-American Bob Mitinger, played what would now be considered the tight end position but were better known for their defensive skills. In that era, when passing was subservient to running, the ends were primarily blockers and spot receivers. Jesse Arnelle set Penn State's record for receptions with 33 in 1952, and he held it until 1965, the year of the rule change, when split end Jack Curry caught 42 passes for 572 yards. From 1950, the year that the T-formation be- came Penn State's offense, to 1964, only four players had more than 300 receiv- ing yards in a season. Prior to Curry's record-setting '65 season, Les Walters held the mark with 440 yards in 1957. Three players, two of them from Penn State's prime Eastern rivals of the 1950s, are credited with transforming the two- way end into the offensive tight end po- sition as we now know it. Neither Mike Ditka of Pitt nor John Mackey of Syra- cuse was ever named a consensus All- American, but Monty Stickles of Notre Dame received that honor in 1959. When Ditka continued his success in the NFL as Rookie of the Year in 1961 with the Chicago Bears while Stickles was star- ring for San Francisco, they solidified their status as the foremost tight ends in the football universe. That same year, Mackey was a junior at Syracuse, finish- ing the season as the team leader in re- ceiving yardage and repeating as a senior. All three enjoyed long NFL careers. The only reason Mackey's name is on the annual award given to college foot- ball's outstanding tight end instead of Ditka's or Stickles' is because his sup- porters created it in 2000. Which brings us back to Freiermuth, who should be the leading candidate for the prestigious Mackey Award when the 2020 season begins. However, winning awards is always a tricky process that depends on a multi- tude of factors, including politics, inside influence and bias. Freiermuth's exclu- sion from the Mackey Award's list of eight semifinalists in mid-November was considered by Nittany Nation to be a major snub. "I can't imagine there are eight tight ends in the country who peo- ple would choose ahead of Pat Freier- muth," coach James Franklin said. "Could there be a couple? OK, I can live with that. But eight? No, no." Freier- muth was relegated to the second team All-Big Ten squad by the coaches and media, as Purdue's Brycen Hopkins, a Mackey semifinalist, was honored as the conference's Kwalick-Clark Tight End of the Year – coincidentally named for Penn State's greatest end, Ted Kwalick. Kwalick, the greatest? Not so, many readers will argue. Kyle Brady is the all- time best. No, no, the younger genera- tion may complain. Mike Gesicki is numero uno. So, here are one writer's selections as the greatest tight ends in Penn State his- tory: Ted Kwalick 1966-68 6-4 | 230 | McKees Rocks, Pa. Kwalick was the protype of the pure tight end, who would have been a Ditka and Mackey peer if he'd been born a few years earlier. He is still Penn State's only tight end to finish in the upper echelon of the Heisman Trophy voting, placing fourth in 1968 behind the now-dis- graced O.J. Simpson of USC. Ditka had been sixth in 1960 when Navy's Joe Bellino won. Mackey never got close. Kwalick also was one of 75 players named to the esteemed 1999 All-Cen- tury team selected by Sports Illustrated that also included Lion teammate Mike Reid at defensive tackle. "Ted Kwalick is what God had in mind when he made a football player," Joe Paterno often said. Paterno was still Rip Engle's loyal as- sistant when he recruited Kwalick out of Montour High School in suburban Pitts- burgh as a two-way end in the freshman class of 1965, when freshmen were still ineligible. When Engle retired after the '65 season, Paterno succeed him and hired Kwalick's high school coach, Bob Phillips, to fill the staff vacancy. "It was an ideal situation," Kwalick said. "He was my receiver coach all through my career." Phillips helped Kwalick become a first-team All-America selection in 1967 and a consensus All-American in '68. It's been more than 50 years since he E F A S T F O R W A R D >> A N E A R L Y L O O K

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