Blue White Illustrated

Season's approach rekindles memories of openers past I 'm a football fan first and foremost and always have been as far back as I can remember. As a grade school squirt still in short pants, I played tackle football in the neighborhood with my cousins and our pals, listening to those classic Notre Dame-Army games on the radio and spending fall afternoons in the late 1940s running around the grandstands at Indiana State Teachers College football games. For years, we thought those Indiana games and the players we idolized were no different than those at Pitt and Penn State. Indiana's games against Lock Haven and Clarion were the same to us as Notre Dame-Army. From mid-August until late November, it was football, football, football, with the greatest day of all on New Year's Day, when all those bowl games were on radio, and then television. I never felt the same about baseball or basketball, although I became a fan of professional boxing. At one time, I even believed I was named after the great Joe Louis because he won the heavyweight boxing championship the day before I was born in 1937. To this day, I get antsy as soon as the players hit training camp, whether it be the NFL or college, and in my adolescent years I could hardly wait for the start of high school football. I was never much of a high school player myself, although I was the third-string center and long snapper in my junior and senior years. Anyone who ever played high school football still can smell that special air from those steamy summer and chilly late fall practices. The highlights of my playing career can be summed up in two historic plays. We substitute players also be- longed to the junior varsity teams, and in my junior year I was inserted as the middle linebacker against Apollo. We had Apollo's JV team backed up against its own 2-yard line when the quarterback called for a sneak – and he blasted past me for a 98-yard touchdown. That was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Then there was the second game of my senior year at Kittanning. All summer, I had practiced centering the ball to our punter, my close friend Tom Laskey. We spent weeks with me centering Tom a bunch of footballs and Tom punting them far downfield. I don't remember snapping the ball in our first game, against Leechburg at home, which was played in a torrential downpour. But early in the Kittanning game, we had to punt from about our 25-yard line. Zip. The ball goes over poor Tom's head. Kittanning recovered and scored a touchdown. We came back to win, but I never did live that day down. Tom is now a retired state trooper residing in the Altoona area, and we still laugh about that moment, having relived it often at high school reunions over the years. Which leads me to my excitement about the start of another football season. By the time you read this, the 2013 Nittany Lions will be just days away from facing Syracuse at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. After that, they will entertain Eastern Michigan in their home opener at Beaver Stadium. No matter the opponent, the opening of each season is a thrill in itself. And this made me think about some of the best and worst opening games I have seen at Penn State since I walked on campus on Sept. 11, 1955, for a week of orientation before classes began. It's hard to believe now, but I wasn't in Beaver Field 13 days later when Penn State opened the season on Sept. 24 with a 35-0 victory over Boston University. I was back in my hometown the night before, watching my former high school team play. I wasn't there just because of football. I also wanted to see my girlfriend, who was in nursing school in New Kensington. She didn't go to the game, and when I went to her house after the game she broke off our relationship. So I returned to the high school for the usual postgame dancing in the gymnasium and started dancing with a senior who had been a casual friend the year before. After the dance, I walked that good-looking young blonde home, and I have been walking her home ever since. That was the beginning of a love affair with my wife of 54 years, Carole, who loves football even more than I do. We now have three children, 10 grandchildren and one great grandchild – none of whom live near us – and often our family get-togethers are centered around Penn State football games, home and away. Carole and I have seen many opening Penn State games together since 1956, and my most memorable games are also hers – except for one. That was in 1958 when I was the sports editor of The Daily Collegian and covering the football team. Coach Rip Engle's team opened the season on Sept. 20 against Nebraska, and I traveled with the team to Lincoln – my first ever cross-country plane trip. Nebraska was far from the powerhouse it is today. In 1957, it had a 19 record under a new coach, with 27 newcomers on its 42-man roster and

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