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was in his ninth year as the Redskins' starting linebacker. Penn State had great linebackers long before it became known as "Linebacker U" and Chuck was part of the lineage that stretched back to Penn State's first first-team All-American, William "Mother" Dunn in 1906. Leon Gajecki also was a first- team All-American in 1940 but Chuck may have been Penn State's best line- backer of all-time – or, at least, until Denny Onkotz and Jack Ham came along – but he never made All-Ameri- can. However, as I wrote in the last chapter, he was the NCAA heavyweight boxing champion in 1950 and one of the stars of Penn State's great unde- feated football team of 1947 that fin- ished fourth in the country. Most Penn Staters don't even realize that the 1947 team played the greatest statistical de- fensive game in NCAA Division I history when they held Syracuse to minus-47 yards total offense in a 47-0 victory. It's still in the record books. On the first day of practice, the Red- skins' linebacker coach, Joe "Terrible Terry" Tereshinski, was discussing how the outside linebackers should play when head up on the tight end. He wanted me in a staggered stance with my inside foot way up in front of the outside foot and bent over the front knee. I didn't want to do it that way and called over to Chuck Drazenovich, who was lined up at middle linebacker, and said, "Chuck, how would you play this?" Chuck came over, lined head up on the tight end in a parallel stance with his feet equally apart, his knees slightly bent, and bent over from the waist, arms hanging down naturally. On the snap count, the tight end tried to re- lease to one side. Chuck moved later- ally, like any good basketball, tennis, racquetball or handball player, brought his hands up quickly on the tight end's upper chest and shoulders and stuffed the tight end on the line of scrimmage. Tereshinski, the linebacker coach, im- mediately said, "That's okay for him, but not for you." I replied, "I want to do it exactly like he did it." And that's the way I did it and then taught it the entire time that I coached linebackers. In 2002, on the 70th anniversary of the Redskins, Chuck Drazenovich and MEN OF STEEL Radakovich confers with Jon Kolb during an NFL game in 1975. The former Penn State assistant was a member of the Steelers' staff in 1971 and from '74-77. defensive end Gene Brito, whom I also met in camp, were two of 67 players and three coaches selected as the 70 Greatest Redskins of all time. RETURNING TO PENN STATE I was hurt in the Redskins' training camp and was cut in early September of 1958, and I im- mediately went back to Penn State. Preseason practice had just started a few days before, and when I arrived, the team was having lunch at the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house where they stayed until classes began. I walked up to the table where Rip Engle, the head coach, was sitting and said, "Rip, is that offer to attend graduate school and coach still open?" He said, "You've got it." My basic duties were to coach the varsity linebackers in preseason and spring practice. But when the freshmen reported about a month after the var- sity, I was assigned to coach the fresh- man linemen and be an assistant to the longtime freshman head coach Earl Dan Radakovich "Pappy" Bruce. And that turned out to be one of the most prophetic junctures of my life because it was with the freshmen that fall where Joe Moore and I forged our deep, lifetime rela- tionship that intertwined throughout our football careers. Joe was then the backfield coach of Penn State's fresh- man team and a senior finishing his undergraduate degree. Years later, while coaching at Pitt and Notre Dame, Joe would be recognized as one of the greatest offensive line coaches in the history of college football. Even while coaching the freshmen, I continued to work with the varsity linebackers, but it was on the freshman team that I found my first linebackers with raw talent. Remember, players also had to play offense at that time, and it was usually the center, fullback and one of the offensive guards who played linebacker on defense. An of- fensive end was an end on defense, too, but in the 5-2 defensive schemes

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