Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/575323
and Ndamukong Suh that has carried over into their NFL careers. The mean players in Penn State's past were often on the edge of nastiness and sometimes stepped over the line to make a point. They were basically good guys, normally friendly and amicable with their teammates and usually respectful of their foes in the other-colored uni- forms. However, sometimes they just couldn't resist disregarding a rule or two and slamming an opposing running back or wide receiver a second or two after the whistle. In the glory years of the Paterno era before the consecutive losing seasons began in the early 2000s, meanness was as much a part of a team's bloodlines as running plays up the middle. Nearly every year, one or two players, and sometimes more, carried the mean- ness flag into battle, even on the practice field. Usually, they were linebackers and defensive linemen – the John Wayne commandoes of football teams – and they became fan favorites with their an- tics. Some were offensive linemen, unfa- miliar to the public, but well known for their meanness by their teammates. Four players from the late 1970s through the '80s come immediately to mind. Two, Matt Millen and Steve Wis- niewski, were first-team All-Americans who went on to enjoy All-Pro careers in the NFL, and two others, Chet Parlavec- chio and Trey Bauer, were second- or third-team All-Americans whose pro careers were wisps in the wind. Millen was the most cantankerous of the foursome and most famous, perhaps because of his post-Penn State notoriety as a 13-year NFL linebacker with four Super Bowl rings and a second career as a sports broadcaster that continues to this day. He was the consummate "bad boy" of the Paterno tenure. As I wrote in the profile of Millen in my book, The Penn State Football Encyclopedia, Millen "often was in Paterno's 'dog- house' because of his brash, head- strong, free-spirit attitude and they ar- gued a lot on and off the field. Paterno never did like Millen's rowdy style of celebrating each good play he made with a leaping war dance." A now-legendary incident during a preseason practice in his senior year of 1979 is indicative of Millen's rebellious attitude. He refused to run the pro- scribed two half-mile drills, and Paterno stripped him of his captaincy, later blaming the team's disappointing 8-4 finish on Millen's insolence. Parlavecchio didn't have to model himself after his teammate Millen when he was a backup linebacker as a sopho- more in 1979. His northern New Jersey roots had already molded his fiery, combative personality before he stepped on the practice field as a true freshman the previous year. "I got thrown off the field my first week-and- a- half five times," Parlavecchio wrote in the book "What it Means To Be a Nittany Lion." "I even had a fight with [kicker] Matt Bahr." Parlavecchio was often as rough on his teammates as he was on opponents, and he delighted in making life miserable for some of the walk-ons on the scout team. He had a personal grudge against one walk-on, Jeff Butya. At one point in the preseason of his junior year, Parlavec- chio irrationally quit the team when he wasn't getting enough playing time. Re- MIAMI VICE Bauer may have clashed with Paterno, but he also helped deliver one of the coach's biggest wins. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics