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have fretted over that historic missed extra point ever since. And when they gather on this year's Homecoming weekend, Sept. 26- 28, for their 55th reunion, they will reminisce again about the game and the missed kick. No one will talk more than the player who has organized the team reunions every five years for decades and the man who missed that extra point, Sam Stellatella. What has been lost in the retelling of Stellatella's missed kick after Penn State's first touchdown is that the Lions also failed twice when attempting to score two points after two electrifying touchdowns in the fourth quarter. That's also the crucial point of Stelllatella's missed extra point. If he had been successful, the two-point tries may not have been necessary and Penn State might have won the game, 21- 20. "Everybody blamed me and said I lost the national championship because if I would have kicked all three points, we would have won the game," Stellatella said recently from his home in Toms River, N.J. "No one felt worse after that game than me. The fact that I missed such an important point stays with you. As a kicker, you have to handle the pressure. You look forward to making the big kick. When you make the kicks you take the glory, and when you miss you take the blame." The frustrating loss was also the catalyst that thrust the team into the center of backroom political machinations involving a new bowl game in Philadelphia and led to an upset at Pitt in the Lions' last game of the season. It's also why Stellatella has promoted the reunions as a gathering of the 1959 Liberty Bowl team. That appellation probably seems in- significant to the younger generation of Penn State fans, since the Liberty Bowl, now played in Memphis, is a second-tier game in an overabundance of bowls. How- ever, in 1959 there were only five major bowl games – the traditional Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton and Gator bowls – and two new ones, the Liberty and Bluebonnet (in Houston). What's also historically noteworthy is that Penn State had only played in two other bowl games, los- ing the 1923 Rose Bowl to USC, 14-3, and tying SMU, 13-13, in the 1948 Cotton Bowl. Thus, Stellatella can rightfully brag that the 1959 team was the first Nittany Lion squad to win a bowl game, as the Lions beat Alabama, 7-0, in the Crimson Tide's first game against an in- tegrated team. The Liberty Bowl was also Rip Engle's first bowl game. Before he retired at the end of the 1965 season, he took two teams to the Gator Bowl, beating Georgia Tech, 30-15, in 1961, and losing to Florida, 17-7, in 1962. There is no doubt that the 1959 team was Engle's best in his 16-year tenure at Penn State. Engle's teams had moderate success but only one before 1959 had finished in the top 20 in the polls. That was in 1954 when the Lions finished with a 7-2 record and a ranking of No. 16 in the UPI coaches' poll and No. 20 in the Associated Press media poll. After two similar seasons in 1957 (6-3) and 1958 (6-3-1), Penn State was an af- terthought in college football. Army was then the "Beast of the East" and ranked No. 5 in the 1959 preseason AP poll, with Syracuse the only other Eastern team in the Top 20 at No. 20 in both polls. Yet, anyone looking closer at the Nittany Lions could see the team's potential, with 15 of 22 starters returning and a genuine Heisman Trophy candidate in senior quar- terback Richie Lucas. This was the bygone era of erratic substitution rules when every- one had to play offense and defense. Engle adjusted to the annual tweaking of the rules by utilizing two platoons – nicknamed blue and red because of the color of practice jerseys they wore – that were nearly equal in talent and on-field playing time. After beating Missouri in the season opener at Columbia, 19-8, Penn State was ranked No. 18 by the AP and then moved to No. 16 with home wins over VMI (21- 0) and Colgate (58-20) before facing No. 5 Army at West Point. The Lions upset Army, 17-11, and proceeded to beat Boston University (21-12) at home and Illinois (20-9) and West Virginia (28-10) away to earn a No. 7 AP ranking in their matchup with Syracuse, now rated No. 3 by UPI and No. 4 by the AP. Syracuse had rolled over six opponents and led the nation in total defense while holding three teams scoreless and two others to only six points. That was enough to make the Orange a six-point favorite in what would be the next-to-last game ever played at New Beaver Field. In retrospect, the 1959 Syracuse game was one of the greatest in the 128-year history of Penn State football. What's most surprising is that the game was not televised, even regionally. However, it was broadcast nationally on a radio network. Back then, the postseason bowl games locked up their pairings before the regular season had concluded. By the time Penn BLOCK PARTY Stynchula's blocked punt helped PSU rally, but the Orange held on for a 20- 18 victory. Photo courtesy of Pa- terno Pattee Li- brary Archives

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