Blue White Illustrated

them. When my teammates get together, we still talk about the game. " It was Friday afternoon on a Homecoming weekend, Oct. 20, 1967, and what is believed to be a record home crowd for a freshman or JV game – 4,000 fans – jammed around the football practice field to see if the frosh could beat a highly touted Pitt squad. It's the same field used today, but the only buildings at the site back then were the East Area Locker Room and a Quonset hut that housed an ice rink. Both the varsity and freshmen dressed in the East Area Locker Room. "We didn't dress with the varsity but had our own locker room separated by the training room, and most of the varsity guys didn't even know our names, Ganter said. "Earl " Bruce was our coach and he had been coaching the freshmen for years. He was getting up there in years, but he was like a grandfather to us. He was such a good guy and more worried about how we adjusted to school and all that rather than football, because freshmen were nothing then. We all called him 'Poppa Bear.' "We only played two games, Pitt and West Virginia. So in our pregame talk for our first game, the Bear came in and said, 'I hope you guys are ready for this. This is really a good Pitt squad. Pitt is going to be the toughest team we play this year...' He paused, and then he said, '…unless West Virginia is tougher. We're all looking ' at each other saying, 'What did he just say?' We still laugh about it when we get together." Overcoming a 9-0 Pitt lead at halftime, the Lion frosh won, 16-9, with the defense holding the Panther yearlings to minus4 yards rushing and intercepting three passes. Ganter was the offensive workhorse at fullback, carrying a team-high 14 times for 59 yards. Halfback Mike Smith was the leading rusher with 69 yards and a touchdown on six carries, and quarterback Terry Stump completed 4 of 7 passes for 74 yards. Two weeks later, Ganter scored the first touchdown of the game at Morgantown against West Virginia. But, as Bruce had suggested, the Mountaineer freshmen were better than Pitt and won, 3417. No one is more synonymous with Penn END AROUND Senior flanker Jim Eaise turns upfield during a junior varsity game at Beaver Stadium in 1974. State freshman football than Bruce. The coaches before him had other on-field duties in addition to coaching the freshmen, but that was Bruce's prime responsibility for 24 years. He had been the coach since 1946 in what was an unusual arrangement with California State Teachers College (now California University of Pennsylvania), where Bruce was actually the head coach of the football team. Because of crowded housing conditions on the main campus after the end of World War II, Penn State assigned most freshmen to California. That enabled some of the football freshmen to play on the small college's varsity team, which was then part of the Pennsylvania State Teachers College Athletic Conference. In 1951, Bruce joined coach Rip Engle's staff as a full-time assistant and coached the freshmen until his retirement after the 1969 season. Every year, at least one graduate assistant would be assigned to help Bruce – and his successors – with the freshmen. John Chuckran, who followed Bruce, had been a Penn State fresh- man in 1944. However, because freshmen were eligible due to the war, Chuckran not only played on the varsity but was the star tailback and captain of the team, which had a 6-3 record. After returning from the armed services, Chuckran was a backup tailback on the 1947-49 teams and joined Joe Paterno's coaching staff in 1970 following a stint as head coach and athletic director at Allegheny College. When Chuckran moved into football administration in 1973, Ganter, Chuckran's freshman graduate assistant, succeeded him. "In those days when I played and coached, the freshman team also served as the scout team," Ganter said. "We'd go out to practice 20 minutes early and practice as a freshman team and then spend the rest of the day with the varsity as scout team." A two- to four-game schedule had been normal since the 1950s, but often games would be canceled by one team or the other because of injuries or lack of players. "Some of the guys remember me walking

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