Blue White Illustrated

the victory. Bill Heufelder, the Penn State beat reporter for The Pittsburgh Press, succinctly summed up the contest in the first paragraph of his game story: "Coach Woody Hayes threw a freshman quarterback to the Lions yesterday with disastrous results. Art Schlichter was intercepted five times, lost a fumble and took a pounding as Penn State smoth- ered Ohio State, 19-0." He also was sacked twice and completed only 12 of 26 passes for 182 yards. Despite the rookie's horrendous debut, Hayes still felt he was grooming a future superstar. "He will be as fine a quarter- back as there is in college football some- day, but I think we were asking too much of him right now," Hayes said after the game. When the cheering stops Schlichter never became a Hall of Fame quarterback, but he was good enough in his last three seasons to be among the top four to six finishers in the Heisman Trophy voting. In his sopho- more year, the Buckeyes were unbeaten until losing to Southern Cal by one point in the Rose Bowl, a loss that may have cost them the national championship. By the end of his career, Schlichter had broken most Ohio State passing records, and he still holds some of them today, including most career wins by a quarter- back (36), most career interceptions (50) and the single-game interception mark from that 1978 Penn State encounter. Until last month, he held the school record for most career passing yards (7,547), but J.T. Barrett surpassed him in a 56-0 victory over Rutgers, throwing for 275 against the Scarlet Knights to bring his career total to 7,622. Woody didn't fare so well. He was fired after blowing his cool at the 1978 Gator Bowl, punching a reserve Clemson line- backer named Charlie Bauman on the sideline after Bauman intercepted a pass in the closing minutes of the game from guess who. However, life would get worse for Schlichter. He became infamous for his compulsive gambling, a habit that dated back to high school and that led to a life- time of crime too extensive to even sum up in this column. Over the decades, he reportedly has spent time in more than 40 jails or prisons, and since 2011 he has been in the Federal Correction Institu- tion in Terre Haute, Ind., where he is serving a 127-month sentence that runs concurrently with state charges. Three weeks after that Ohio State game, Carole and I were part of a large group from the Dayton Penn State Alumni Chapter that took a chartered bus to Lexington to see the Nittany Lions shut out Kentucky, 30-0, for their sixth consecutive victory. That 1978 Penn State team went on to be one of the greatest in school history but lost its al- lure after falling short of the national championship with a loss to Alabama in the 1979 Sugar Bowl. I was there in New Orleans that night with Carole and our two teenage children, and it was a long drive back to Dayton. During my five years in Dayton, I met dozens of passionate Ohio State fans. Most were nice people, no different than Penn State or Michigan loyalists, espe- cially the alumni. We all have our share of nasty, confrontational fans who go out of their way to cause trouble, but too many Buckeyes followers are like that, especially the ones who didn't attend the university. After that 1978 Penn State game, I went back to the Horseshoe just three times when "that team up north" was there in late November of 1978, '80 and '82. I spent many of my fall Saturdays chopping wood and mowing the grass, which was more satisfying than watch- ing Ohio State football games. By the time Penn State entered the Big Ten, I had become a Northwestern jour- nalism professor running the graduate broadcast program in Washington, D.C., close enough to University Park to be a season-ticket holder. I figured I would see a few more Penn State victories in Columbus, but it didn't turn out that way. I haven't been back since a whop- ping 63-14 defeat in 2013. To be honest, I never liked the Horse- shoe that much anyway. ■ A 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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