Blue White Illustrated

recalled years later in Missanelli's book. But not the Miami players. They bristled as the Penn State skit continued with a few players on stage singing a special song and then performing a skit mocking Testaverde that ended with then-student manager Spider Caldwell wearing a shaggy white uniform and striking his unique version of the Heisman pose. Then, in what appeared to be an im- promptu act, Jerome Brown stood up, thanked the Fiesta Bowl organizers, un- zipped his sweat suit, revealing the army combat fatigues and said, "We're here to play football. Did the Japanese sit down and eat with Pearl Harbor before they bombed them? No. We're outta here." He waved his arms, and the rest of the Miami players unzipped their sweat suits and stormed out wearing their fatigues. The audience was stunned momentarily. Bruno walked back on stage and his succinct retort made him a legend: "You'll have to excuse them. They had to run off for the filming of 'Rambo III.' But excuse me, didn't the Japanese lose the war?" The crowd roared and the tension of the last few minutes disappeared. "I think they're overreacting," Bruno told Weiss later that night. "It was supposed to be fun. I don't think a big deal needs to be made of it. I just wanted to show people what kind of a team we are. Maybe I picked the wrong way to do it. … I can't say Miami took it the wrong way. They took it the way they wanted. If I had known it, I wouldn't have done it." However, what Bruno and most others in the room didn't know is that the walk- out had been planned long before Bruno's comments, as this writer has been told and Weinreb wrote in "Bigger Than the Game": "Out toward their buses went the men in their fatigues, adhering to a plan they had apparently formulated before the event had even began – a walkout on the old ways, a thumb in the eye of their staid and predictable foe." Most of the immediate media reaction was positive for Penn State and negative for Miami, increasing the "good guys vs. bad guys" environment that pervaded throughout the week. It continued in Miami's pregame news conference when Brown demeaned Shaffer and All-Amer- ica tailback D. J. Dozier and continued into the pregame warm-ups when the Miami team taunted the Nittany Lions from the time they got off the buses until the kickoff. "If there is any justice in the world," wrote Gail Tabor for the Arizona Repub- lic, "the Miami Hurricanes will leave here Saturday with a championship. For rude- ness, not football." As we now know, that is precisely what happened. Seventy million people watched on television – still the largest audience ever for a college sports event. On April 19, 1992, John Bruno Jr. died. The melanoma first discovered in 1985 had become cancerous, and by December 1991 it had spread into his organs while he was working in golf equipment sales in Pittsburgh. In addition to the foundation in his honor, there is a Penn State team award named for him that has been given annually since 1992 to "the outstanding member of the special teams." Just three other punters have won the award: Pat Pidgeon (1999), Jeremy Kapinos (2006) and Jeremy Boone (2009). "The fact that the award recognizes someone from the special teams who too often might fly under the radar has been great because John was the ultimate team player," Bruno's sister Cheryl said. "John never took himself too seriously. In that regard, he knew what it was like to be part of a team, something that my dad in- stilled in the two of us from a very early age. And when you're a special teams player, it's about every individual on that team doing their job. "John talked so much about his long- snapper, Gregg Truitt. John said he knew he was going to get that consistent snap every time, and that's why he knew he could stand closer to the line and get that ball off very quickly, especially in that Fi- esta Bowl when they were coming in on him and every split second counted. In fact, President Reagan specifically men- tioned him in his remarks when the team went to the White House later. Yet, it's still hard to believe that only five years after what John did at the Fiesta Bowl he passed away. That's why the Foreman Foundation is so important to us all." ■ A new Penn State football book by Lou Prato with a forward by Adam Taliaferro The Remarkable Journey of the 2012 Nittany Lions Price: $14.95 plus shipping Published by Triumph Books (soft cover) Autographed copies available via louprato@comcast.net or through Lou Prato & Associates at 814-954-5171 Autographed copies of Lou's book We Are Penn State: The Remarkable Journey of the 2012 Nittany Lions are still available via louprato@comcast.net or through Lou Prato & Associates at 814-954-5171. Price: $19.95 plus tax where applicable and shipping

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