to be the head coach of the football and
baseball teams.
The
schedule for the 1918 season was
disclosed in the Penn State Collegian by
the athletic department on Sept. 9, with
four home games and er-
son, Dartmouth and Cornell. That leA
Rutgers at home on Nov. 9 and away
games at Lehigh on Nov. 19 and Pitt on
Nov. 28. Penn State came up with a fourth
game to open the season at Beaver Field
on Nov. 2, a U.S. Navy team, Wissahickon
Barracks, which was based in Cape May,
N.J.
Nary a letterman was in sight on
Bezdek's team when the Nittany Lions
and Wissahickon Barracks tied, 6-6. The
next week, Rutgers thumped the Lions,
26-3, led by All-America end Paul Robe-
son, who would later become world fa-
mous as a singer and civics rights leader.
Two days after the Rutgers game, on
Nov. 11, World War I officially came to an
end. Lehigh was a slight favorite on Nov.
16 and began the game by putting to-
gether a long touchdown drive after re-
ceiving the opening kickoff, but it
missed the extra point. Moments later,
Lehigh had the ball again, but Penn State
forced a punt inside the Engineers' 15-
yard line. Red Henry blocked the kick,
scooped up the ball and ran into the end
zone. Future Hall of Famer Glenn
Killinger booted the extra point, and
there was no more scoring in the Lions'
7-6 win. Pitt put the cap on the worst
season record since Penn State started
football in 1887 with a 28-6 win on
Thanksgiving Day.
As the fall evolved into the spring of
1919, the last deadly wave of the =u killed
millions more. Historians have estimated
that 675,000 Americans died. However,
Penn State's campus was largely spared
from the ravages of the pandemic. Mike
Bezilla, author of the book "Penn State:
An Illustrated History," reported that only
six students and six townspeople per-
ished.
Bezdek's
ill-fated 1918 season would be
Penn State's last losing one until 1928.
With Higgins and the other war veterans
back for the 1919 season, Penn State won
seven of eight games, including a 48-7
rout of Ursinus on Oct. 25 that launched
what would become a 30-game unde-
feated streak.
Another period of chaos
Not until the Japanese sneak attack on
Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, which thrust
the United States instantly into the center
of World War II, was there another period
of chaos for Penn State's football team.
From 1942 through '45, one literally
needed a large scorecard to keep track of
the dozens of players who shu@ed in and
out of Penn State because college cam-
puses nationwide were being used for the
training of volunteers and draAees by the
military. The training programs did not
start until 1943, but the outbreak of the
war still had a major e>ect on coach Bob
Higgins' 1942 team.
Spring practice was hectic, with many
of the players from the 1941 team and the
outstanding undefeated freshman team
leaving for the armed services. Practice
sessions were conducted sporadically be-
cause there oAen were not enough players
available for scrimmages. With enroll-
ment remaining stable at about 7,000 for
the 1942 fall semester, Higgins started
preseason practice on Sept. 8. Twenty-
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