Blue White Illustrated

come one of the star backs on the his- toric 1946 and '47 teams. Pitt was forced to cancel the second JV game because it didn't have enough players on its team. It also lacked a coach, because Forrest Evashevski, who would go on to become a College Football Hall of Fame coach at Iowa, had joined the Navy. Meanwhile, Penn State's JVs – now dubbed "Marty's Martyrs" by The Daily Collegian – would occasionally scrimmage against the varsity. With Hoggard starting at left end on the morning of Oct. 24, Marty's Martyrs lost to Colgate's JV team, 13-9. Hoggard scored the only Penn State touchdown on a pass from halfback Jack Flowers in the third quarter after Colgate had led 13-0 at the half. It really didn't matter anymore because the JV season was over. A new teammate In a page one story on Oct. 27, The Daily Collegian reported on the cancela- tion of all "Junior Varsity sports activi- ties… for the duration of the war in a sweeping move at the second emergency meeting of the Athletic Advisory Board [the previous evening]. Brought about by the growing lack of transportation which caused many Penn State jayvee opponents to discontinue their sched- ules, the surprise curtailment of the Lion intercollegiate program leaves only the varsity and intramural programs in- tact. Sports affected by the new action are football, cross-country, track, wrestling, soccer and basketball." Pre- sumably, Hoggard and the other JV starters and key reserves continued to practice with the varsity, which had four games left on its schedule. Over the winter, Hoggard was on the varsity indoor track team, winning at least one broad jump event against Cor- nell in late February. He never earned a letter but did become friendly with the team's leading broad jumper and na- tionally known sprinter, Barney Ewell. Spring football practice was canceled in 1943 because, astonishingly, every varsity player had left for the military. Sometime that spring or early summer, Hoggard also joined the Army. When he returned to school in August 1946, he joined a Nittany Lion team that was loaded with talented players stretching as far back as the undefeated 1941 fresh- man squad. One of his new teammates was Wallace Triplett III. Triplett also had admired Dave Alston, but he already knew he didn't possess Alston's skills when Higgins wrote him a letter inviting him to Penn State. "We weren't recruited much in eastern Penn- sylvania back then," Triplett recalled years ago. "Everything came out of western Pennsylvania for Penn State. … I mean they were definitely recruited. [Coaches] looked at us Eastern kids as not the same type of material, which truly we weren't. We played a different game. … They just sent you a basic letter about 'Would you like to come up to Penn State?' " Like Hoggard, Triplett also didn't know where Penn State was located. He thought it was in Lewisburg. He didn't learn differently until told by a ticket agent at the Philadelphia railroad station when buying fare for his first trip to State College to enroll in late August 1945. Despite his youth, Triplett was more aware and more outspoken about racial injustice, and that didn't go over well with many of his teammates and coaches. He was the opposite of the Al- ston brothers and Hoggard in his per- sona. "Dennie and I hit it off immediately," Triplett remembered. "Everybody liked Dennie, but I kinda rubbed everyone the wrong way. I admit, I was always pick- ing things out of what people were say- ing, whereas Denny would just go along with things." That friction didn't stop Penn State's white players from forcing the cancela- tion of the 1946 Miami game and bring- ing about the integration of the Cotton Bowl. 'Everyone over the goal line' As for that pass to Hoggard that almost won the bowl game? With the clock winding down in the last seconds, Penn State had gained possession at its own 40-yard line. Tailback Elwood Petchel quickly threw the ball about 10 yards to a wide-open Bob Hicks, who made a cir- cuslike catch but, regrettably, stumbled down at the SMU 37. Penn State called timeout with two seconds left for one last play. "We had a 79-right play [called]," Hog- gard told Bilovsky. "But Elwood said, 'Everyone over the goal line. I'm going to throw the ball over the goal line.' " "Triplett and Dennie Hoggard raced for the end zone, well covered," Ridge Riley later reported in his popular Penn State Alumni Newsletter. "The clock had run out. … Triplett and Hoggard were behind the SMU defenders, who leaped high in the air. One of them deflected it and it... hit Hoggard in the stomach. … He actually had no chance to catch it." Some of the media reported that Hog- gard had simply dropped the ball, but Hoggard told Bilovsky that "the ball never touched me. It was tipped and I think Wally was the one who tipped it. … I dove for it and it went right through my fingers. … The first person over to me – I was on my way off the field, I feel this hand on me, I look around, and it's Doak Walker. He says, 'Nice game. You almost won it.' " Looking at Penn State's game film of the Cotton Bowl, one can clearly see that the pass was thrown to the right side- line, just inside the goal line. It's less clear who tipped it, because the ball seems to be over the outstretched hands of the SMU defenders. Centre Daily Times sports editor Tom Lyon thought sophomore fullback Dick McKissack may have been the one who deflected the ball. Hoggard, who went on to own a pros- perous jewelry store in West Philadel- phia, died on Sept. 20, 1985, undoubtedly believing he had no chance of catching the winning touchdown pass in that milestone Cotton Bowl game. Just think: If Dennie Hoggard Jr. had caught that pass, he might be more fa- mous and more revered today than Wal- lace Triplett III. ■

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