Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/604314
record. Moore is also in the 1959 La Vie baseball team photo, top row, sixth play- er from the right. There is just one man separating him from one of Penn State's all-time great players and my classmate, pitcher-first baseman Cal Emery, the only Nittany Lion to be named MVP of the College World Series – in 1957 when that team was the runner-up to national champion California. There's also a photo of Joe in his base- ball uniform on page 7 of the May 28, 1958, edition of The Daily Collegian after Penn State had lost to Lafayette, 8-7, the previous Saturday. The caption under the photo reads. "…sparkles in defense" with this notation in the story written by an unnamed reporter: "Moore, inciden- tally, was one of the Lion defensive standouts. He made several run-saving catches, including a bases loaded job in the inning ala-Duke Snider" of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I was surprised to find other references to Joe in the newspaper's stories about intramural football and basketball games. Moore played for his fraternity, Phi Kappa Sigma, and in a story on Nov. 1, 1958, about his football team's 13-12 loss to Tau Kappa Epsilon, Joe was the star. Late in the first half, "Moore re- ceived a TKE punt and threw 65 yards to Parker Eldridge for the touchdown." Then with two minutes left, "Moore threw a touchdown pass to Joe Sullivan to give Phi Sig a 12-6 lead," but TKE came back, scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point to win the game. OK, so it wasn't a Beaver Field game against Pitt or Syracuse, but it was typi- cal of the real Joe Moore on the gridiron when he was healthy. In the fall of 1958, head coach Rip En- gle asked Moore to help coach the fresh- man team and the varsity running backs. In that era, freshmen were ineligible and the team played two to four games a year against the frosh teams of such Eastern rivals as Pitt, Syracuse and West Vir- ginia. Assistant Earl Bruce was the freshman coach, and in 1957 and '58 he also had Radakovich, then a graduate as- sistant, helping with the defense while also specifically coaching the lineback- ers. At the time, I was a sportswriter for COACHING ICON Moore (left and below, top row, second from left) gained fame as an assistant coach at Pitt, but he got his start at Penn State, playing halfback for the Nittany Lions before a back injury ended his career. Photo courtesy of La Vie/Penn State Library Archives.