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helped create Penn State's illustrious "We Are…" cheer. My extensive re- search over nearly 20 years credits the cheerleaders for its birth in the late 1970s, but Triplett's version of its ori- gin does capture the spirit and essence of the cheer. Triplett's fame not only relates to the integration of the Cotton Bowl but also to his distinction as the first African- American to play in a Penn State varsity game as a freshman in 1945 and the first to earn a letter and a starting position – at wingback. He also became the first African-American draftee to play in the NFL in 1949 with Detroit. Hoggard was never more than a re- serve end, but he was the third black player ever on the Penn State football team when he walked on during his freshman year of 1942. He left before the '43 fall semester for service in the Army and returned from the battle- fields of Europe in '46 but never played pro football. Curiously, there is a discrepancy about when they earned their letters, and it revolves around the 1946 season when the Penn State football team took its first revolutionary stand for racial equality. A game had been scheduled at segregated Miami to wind up the sea- son. However, in mid-October, Miami officials told Penn State not to bring its two black players, Triplett and Hog- gard. In a vote conducted by Nittany Lion head coach Bob Higgins, the play- ers decided unanimously to reject the demand, and Miami canceled the game. Years later, Triplett told this writer, "You could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer when the guys stood up and said what they said [during the vote]. … They didn't un- derstand the national significance of what they did." Neither the official athletic depart- ment records of 1946 nor the student yearbook, La Vie, listed Triplett or Hog- gard among the 20 letter-winners that season. That's probably because the re- quirements for letters back then were rigid and based strictly on playing time. The annual football yearbook now rec- ognizes Triplett as a letter-winner for 1946, '47 and '48, but Hoggard is cred- ited with just '47 and '48. Obviously, the official record was altered at one time to properly acknowledge Triplett's worth to the '46 team, but again, Hoggard has been the ignored and forgotten. Inspired by Alston Although Triplett and Hoggard did not meet until 1946, they were born and raised in the same area of suburban Philadelphia. They became such close friends as teammates that Hoggard was the best man at Triplett's wedding in 1951. Both the Hoggard and Triplett families had their roots in the segregated South, and their ancestors had migrated to eastern Pennsylvania in the 1800s. Hog- gard was from West Philadelphia, a town southwest of downtown Philadel- phia, while Triplett hailed from the in- corporated village of La Mott in Cheltenham Township, a few miles northeast of downtown and West Philadelphia. La Mott had its place in history. It is located on the site of a former Army base known as Camp William Penn, which became the training center for the first 11 regiments of black troops during the Civil War. After the base closed, the area was renamed Camp Town, and black families and immigrants primarily of Irish descent settled there and pros- pered as the community became known as La Mott. The local high school, Chel- tenham, became one of the best in the state, and that's where Triplett attracted interest from college football coaches. Hoggard went to a virtually all-black high school, Overbrook, where he played football and other sports. Triplett and Hoggard were from solid middle class families, and both were named for their fathers. Triplett's father worked at the post office, but Hoggard's dad was more affluent and better- known. Dennie Sr. dabbled in several businesses and was minister of the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church from 1933-65. He turned to politics after his son left home for Penn State, serving as a Philadelphia County assemblyman in the Pennsylvania House of Representa- tives from 1943-54. Dennie Jr. went to Penn State because of the exploits of Dave Alston, but he re- ally didn't know where the school was located. Alston and his older brother Harry were the first African-Americans to play football at Penn State. That was in 1941 when Dave was a burgeoning triple-threat tailback and led the Nit- tany Lion freshman team to its greatest season. The team was unbeaten in five games, outscoring opponents 133-26, with Dave running for eight touch- downs, passing for four and kicking six extra points drop-kick style while mak- ing tackles and breaking up passes on defense. Hoggard had first heard about Dave when the future Penn State fresh- man star was an All-State player at Mid- land High School in western Pennsylvania, but it was an article in the popular weekly magazine Colliers that set Dennie Jr. off to State College. Hog- gard talked about it with Philadelphia sportswriter Frank Bilovsky, then a Nit- tany Lion beat reporter, for Bilovsky's 1972 book, "Lion Country: Inside Penn State Football." "[Dave] was projected to be the num- ber one sophomore halfback in the country," Hoggard remembered. "He was a tremendous athlete. Physically, he was built on the order of Jim Brown. … Up to then, I didn't know where Penn State was. I thought maybe it was near Villanova [about ten miles west of Hog- gard's homestead in West Philadelphia's Overbrook section], or just beyond Vil- lanova. But after reading so much and hearing so much about Dave, I became interested in State." Unfortunately, by the time Hoggard arrived on campus, Dave Alston was dead. On Aug. 15, 1942, two weeks after the start of the two-month-long pre- season practice, Alston died unexpect- edly from a blood clot after a seemingly routine tonsillectomy. The shock had left a pall over the school and commu- nity. It was still being felt when Hoggard and some 1,500 other freshmen turned

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