Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1294210
eve of the traditional =nal game at Pitt, they decided not to renew Zen Scott's contract but did not tell him until aAer the Lions lost the game, 28-6. Harlow was back in charge with a three- year contract. When he opened spring practice in March 1918, he was not sur- prised to =nd most of his 1917 players had already leA for the military. In July, Har- low decided he should join them and asked the Athletic Committee to release him from his new contract. On Aug. 25, the committee hired the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, Hugo Bezdek, to be head coach. This was not as bizarre as it seems. Bezdek had been a star fullback for the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg at the University of Chicago. He gained prominence as the head coach of unbeaten teams at Oregon and Arkansas, and he won two Rose Bowls – with Oregon in 1917 and with the Mare Is- land Marines in 1918. When not coaching football, he worked for the Pirates as their West Coast scout. With the team in a deep slump in early July, Pittsburgh gave the manager's job to Bezdek with a contract through the 1919 season. What transpired between Bezdek and the Athletic Committee in the next few months was a labyrinthine process. AAer the 1918 football season, Bezdek proposed the es- tablishment of a new aca- demic School of Physical Education with faculty oversight of athletics. He eventually signed a multi- year contract that made him director of the new school, with supervision over all intercollegiate sports programs. In essence, he was the director of athletics. The contract also made him responsible for the physical training of students and the intramurals program and allowed him LION LEADER Higgins, second from left, shown here coaching the 1948 Cotton Bowl team, was a standout player for Penn State in the early 1900s. He missed the 1917 and '18 seasons while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics