Blue White Illustrated

athletes but were hardnosed tough guys with a lot of pride who were not going to be embarrassed." 'The biggest jackasses in the world' Pitt Stadium was 56 years old in 1981 and it looked more than its age, even after an extensive renovation in the late 1970s that had eliminated the crumbling con- crete and splintering wooden bleachers and reduced permanent seating capacity by some 15,000. Located on campus on what everyone referred to as Cardiac Hill because of the steep climb to get there, it was still 19 years away from extinction but was the proud home of the Panthers, who had not lost a game there since falling to Penn State in 1977. The official attendance for the 1981 game was 60,260, the largest Pitt crowd in 34 years thanks to 6,000 temporary wooden bleacher seats that were set up at field level. Many Penn Staters in the crowd, including Sue Paterno, were proudly wearing buttons that read: "Parlavecchio, the Italian En- forcer." Despite all the pregame verbal shenani- gans, Pitt was a solid touchdown favorite. When Penn State won the coin toss and decided to receive, the weather was cloudy and cool, with 33 degree temper- atures and little wind. Pitt's kickoff went into the end zone, and it was three-and- out for Penn State with only a 1-yard gain on a quarterback scamper. What happened in the next 15 minutes was as demoralizing and humiliating as any single quarter in Penn State football history. It was a blitzkrieg so shocking that 35 years later, many of the Penn State fans who were in the stadium or watching on television still cannot believe what they were seeing. In five plays, Pitt had a touchdown on a 28-yard pass from junior quarterback Dan Marino to star wide receiver Dwight Collins. After another quick three-and- out for Penn State, Marino led the Pan- thers on a 10-play, 64-yard drive that ended with a 9-yard touchdown pass to Collins. With 4 minutes, 26 seconds still left in the first quarter, the Panthers led 14-0. Pitt's defense stopped the Lions again on a three-and-out, holding them to minus-2 yards to force a punt. In five plays, Marino had them at the Penn State 31. They were facing second-and-7 when the first quarter mercifully ended. Parlavecchio was mortified. "I'm think- ing, 'Oh my God, we're the biggest jack- asses in the world,' " he remembered. What happened in the next 15 minutes was equally unbelievable and demoraliz- ing. Only this time, it was Pitt and its over-exuberant fans on the receiving end of the blitzkrieg. Marino, leading the nation now with 36 touchdown passes, took the snap and threw to Collins, who was again dashing into the end zone. "I just threw it up there and thought Dwight could get under it," Marino told reporters later. But Penn State defensive back Roger Jackson reached out above and ahead of Collins in the corner of the end zone for the inter- ception and changed the momentum of the game. Within three minutes, the score was 14-7, with 67 yards of Penn State's subsequent 80-yard touchdown drive coming on four Blackledge passes and a 15-yard facemask penalty. After Pitt ran back the kickoff to its 19- yard line, Parlavecchio led the Lion de- fense back onto the field, with fire in his eyes and mayhem on his mind. "I thought we needed something to give us a spark," he said after the game, and he knew pre- cisely what he was going to do. On first down, Marino hit Pitt's other star receiver, Julius Dawkins, for a 25-yard gain, and then the Panthers gained 3 yards on a short run. Facing second-and-7, Marino passed again to Collins, who grabbed the ball for an 11-yard gain before being forced out of bounds at the 50 in front of the Pitt bench on a soft tackle by Jackson. As Collins was falling away from Jackson, Parlavecchio, coming from a dif- ferent direction, tackled him at least 5 yards deep, clutching Collins around the shoulders as they both went down and into a crowd of Pitt players. There's an old saying about memories playing tricks, and the Parlavecchio hit is a classic example. Everyone seems to re- member the play as a vicious one, but it wasn't a hard hit and would have been a legal tackle if it had occurred in bounds. Some of the Pitt players bunched around Parlavecchio and screamed at him as he calmly walked back toward the field with other Lion players nearby. One can see Sherrill approaching Parlavecchio from the field and saying something to him at the sideline. Mike Poorman, who covered the game for The Daily Collegian, wrote that Sher- rill grabbed Parlavecchio's arm and then quoted Parlavecchio as saying, "I thought we were going to have a war. I didn't try to hurt [Collins] or anything. … We needed something to give us a spark." The momentum shifts Five plays later, Pitt was facing third- and-13 inside the Penn State 28-yard line when Marino threw deep to Dawkins. Just as the ball reached Dawkins at the 3-yard line, Jackson belted him and deflected the ball to safety Mark Robinson, who inter- cepted it and returned it from the goal line to the Penn State 17. Some fans recall Robinson scoring a touchdown on the play, but they are confusing that moment with a play that occurred late in the fourth quarter on which he returned an interception 91 yards to clinch the vic- tory. Actually, Robinson's second-quarter interception did not even set up a touch- down drive. But it was a big-time confi- dence-builder that continued the slow shift of momentum to Penn State throughout the rest of an intense first half. For the next few minutes, the teams traded punts and mistakes, including a Pitt fumble and Penn State interception, without getting close to the end zone. Then, with less than five minutes left in the half, Blackledge engineered a two- minute, six-play, 80-yard drive featuring a 52-yard bomb to Roger Jackson's younger brother Kenny that set up an 8- yard touchdown on a draw by Blackledge. That TD tied the score, 14-14, with 2:42 left in the half. Now, it was up to Penn State's defense SEE UPSET PAGE 61

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