Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/78629
ences. Back then, it was only the new head football coach, Joe Paterno, and sports information director Jim Tar- man in a medium-sized car driving through Pennsylvania to talk to news- paper, radio and television reporters. For years afterward, Paterno and Tarman would occasionally reminisce about that tour, which took place a few months after Paterno had been named in mid-February 1966 to succeed Rip Engle. Even though Paterno had been on Engle's staff for 16 years, he was not a household name to the casual football fan. It was Tarman, the SID since 1958, who came up with the idea of a road trip to familiarize the popu- lous with the rookie head coach while also generating publicity for Penn State football. Unlike the recent jaunt featuring Paterno's successor, Bill O'Brien, which drew approximately 5,000 fans, the Pa- terno-Tarman trip was strictly for the media. The Penn State football nation was much smaller in 1966 and not as rabid. Penn State was then just a re- gional football power, and the number of alumni members and formal chap- ters were miniscule compared to today. Whereas the Alumni Association and Nittany Lion Club planned and coordi- nated the Coaches Caravan, the Pater- no caravan was strictly a two-man gig. With Paterno gone and Tarman in- capacitated by a long illness, the de- tails of that summer's excursion can- not be verified. However, Tarman's wife, Louise, recalls the endeavor. "I remember they had reservations at ON THE AIR In addition to their statewide tour in 1966, Paterno and Tarman promoted the Nittany Lion football program by appearing together on WPSU's "TV Quarterbacks." Paterno-Pattee Library Archives W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M J U N E 2 8 , 2 0 1 2 31 certain hotels," she said. "I know they were in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Harrisburg. I'm not sure if they were in New York or if there were any others. They could have gone to other cities and towns, but I don't remember. What I do remember is that in order to save money they bought all their liquor here and put it in suitcases because it would have been so much more expen- sive to have bought it at the hotels. So they'd set up a little hospitality suite and they would invite some of the media in the area to meet Joe." Fran Fisher, the now-retired longtime voice of Penn State athletics, was then working for a Lewistown radio station, but before the summer was over, he would be hired as the second analyst on the network radio broadcast of the football games. "I remember it