Blue White Illustrated

DEC. 30, 1961 Although All-America defensive end Dave Robinson became the first black player to appear in the Gator Bowl, the team had to stay in nearby St. Augustine, Fla., because Jacksonville was still segregated. Robin- son made what Philadelphia sports- writer Larry Merchant called "possibly the Play of the Century" midway through the third quarter, when he leaped over two blockers, grabbed the Georgia Tech quarterback around the neck and slammed him to the ground, causing a fumble that Robinson recovered. Galen Hall threw a 35-yard touchdown pass on the next play, his third TD pass of the game, as the Nittany Lions came back from a 9- 0 second-quarter deficit to upset Tech, 35-15. Hall was named the game's MVP. DEC. 29, 1962 Despite a 9-1 regular season, the Lions were spurned by the New Year's Day bowls. Remembering the dreary pregame practices in St. Augus- tine from the previous year, the seniors voted against playing in the Gator Bowl but were outvoted. Nothing seemed to go right except a meeting at the White House with President John F. Kennedy before Christmas while the team was practicing in Annapolis, Md. Travel to St. Augustine was disrupted by airplane problems, forcing a bus trip from Har- risburg to Pittsburgh and later a bad- weather landing in Orlando instead of Jacksonville, followed by another de- pressing bus trip. Practices were as list- less as the game, which Florida won in an upset, 17-7. "Nobody had his mind on the game," halfback Roger Kochman remembered later. DEC. 30, 1967 A 17-17 tie with Florida State was the linchpin for the start of the Paterno legend. His gamble on fourth-and-inches at the Penn State 15- yard line with a 17-0 lead early in the third quarter backfired, as favored Florida State rallied and tied the score on a 35-yard field goal with 35 seconds left. The pregame trip and practices were radically different from past Gator Bowls, as the team spent nine days practicing in lively Daytona Beach. Sportswriters praised Paterno's bold- ness and the play-to-win philosophy behind the ill-fated fourth-down gam- ble. "If I had ordered a punt… I wouldn't have had the courage to be the football coach I want to be," Paterno told the Philadelphia Inquirer. DEC. 27, 1976 Penn State seemed headed for a lesser bowl with a 7-4 record when No. 12 Notre Dame (8-3) convinced the Gator Bowl to invite the Lions. The schools had played four times but not since 1926. Spoiled by a string of New Year's Day games, Penn State fans bought just 8,000 of the school's 11,000 allotted tickets, but Florida alumni helped boost the attendance to 67,827. Those who watched the Monday night game on television were happy they were not sitting in the unusually chilly and blustery weather, as Notre Dame took a 20-3 halftime lead and won, 20-9. "I had hoped we had reached the stage where we could play a good football team and beat them," Paterno said. "I was disappointed." officially became the host team of the Cotton Bowl. Of course, the Cotton Bowl is now part of Penn State's illustrious history after the great undefeated team of 1947 be- came the first one with African-Ameri- can players to play in the game. The sto- ry of how Wally Triplett and Denny Hoggard integrated the game is familiar to many Penn Staters, and it's about to hit the national populace once again with the airing of a new "ESPN 30 for 30" television program on Triplett and that 1947 team. What is still relatively unknown to the public is how Penn State's football teams were involved in the integration of two other bowl games. In December 1961, Penn State's future College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Dave Robinson would be the first black player to appear in the Gator Bowl. Two years earlier, in 1959, Penn State had been the first team with a black player, tackle Charlie Janerette, to play against Alabama in what was then a new bowl game in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bowl. The creation of the Liberty Bowl and Penn State's participation in that first P E N N S T A T E I N T H E G A T O R B O W L B Y L O U P R A T O GATOR COUNTRY A crowd of 50,202 at- tended the 1961 Gator Bowl in which PSU defeated Georgia Tech, 35-15. Photo courtesy of Penn State Library Archives

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