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Many football players also played basketball, such as Jack Sherry, captain of the 1954 Final Four team, and his teammate, Jesse Arnelle, who became a first-team All-American the next season ��� and there hasn���t been another one since. It wasn���t until the 1970s that all that began to change, with most of the players eventually getting full scholarships. For years, the dearth in scholarships was at the root of the team���s mediocrity. The blame went to the leaders of the university and the school���s inadequate financing for sports. Egli and his players and the true basketball fans were the dupes and the victims. The criticism I received from my column led directly to my eight-part series in March analyzing the athletic department���s funding and spending. For the record, Dean Ernie McCoy, the athletic director, told me the only full scholarships were: 68 in football, four in wrestling and one in baseball. Seventy-six athletes in 11 sports also were receiving some type of aid, including the fraternity assistance, with 13 in basketball. The Associated Press used my series for its own report on Penn State���s athletic finances. Dean McCoy wasn���t happy with some of what I wrote and he told me so, and his coolness toward me lasted long after I had graduated. But the most memorable reaction came from John Egli himself. Keep in mind, coaching basketball was not a full-time job at Penn State; Egli also taught classes. That season, I covered wrestling for The Daily Collegian and traveled with the team to road matches. The Thursday my column was published, I was at Hamilton, N.Y., for a match against Colgate. The next day we bused up to Syracuse for a wrestling-basketball doubleheader at the old War Memorial, where the city���s NBA team played. The wrestling match with Syracuse was first, and the basketball game was the nightcap. We were at the War Memorial before the basketball team arrived, and I was standing along the wall in the empty lobby at about 4:30 p.m. when Penn State���s basketball team walked in. DuMars, Collendar and their teammates gave me the meanest looks I have ever seen. As the old saying goes, if looks could kill, I would have been watching my next wrestling meet or basketball game with God or the devil. Egli walked in and ambled slowly over toward me. I thought, ���Oh s--t!��� I don���t remember his exact words, but the conversation went something like this: ���How are you, Lou?��� Egli said smiling and offering his hand for me to shake. ���Ah��� OK, John,��� I replied warily, wondering if he was going to tell me to go join the devil���s basketball team. ���How are you?��� ���Fine, Lou, fine,��� Egli said. ���Having a good trip?��� ���Ah, ah��� yeah, John,��� I mumbled. ���Aren���t you upset at my basketball column?��� ���Lou, you���re a reporter and you���re still young,��� he replied. ���Write what you think you should write and don���t worry about any criticism you get. From me or anyone else. We all have our problems. You���ll learn you���re not always right and you���re not always wrong. I believe you���re wrong here, but you���ll have to find out for yourself.��� And with that, John wished me well and headed toward the basketball locker room. As we now say, that was a teaching moment and I was the only student. I have never forgotten that moment and the graciousness and humility of John Egli after I had just suggested he should be fired. I respect the man to this day, and he has been gone since 1982. Egli went on to coach until the 1967-68 season. He finally took his Nittany Lions back to the NCAA tournament in 1965 with a 20-3 record, but they lost their first game to Princeton, 60-58. The next season, Penn State was in the NIT but was defeated by San Francisco, 89-77, and finished with an 18-6 record. Af- NG COMI UST G IN AU The Remarkable Journey of the 2012 Nittany Lions By Lou Prato Author of the Penn State Football Encyclopedia and four other Nittany Lion football books SEE PRATO PAGE 60

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