by Ralph D. Russo
(AP)—In the mid-1960s, there was no such thing as a Northeastern power in college football.
Michigan State and Notre Dame dominated the Midwest. Bear Bryant’s Alabama teams ruled the South. Out West, UCLA was at its best and USC was rising again.
Then came Joe Paterno.
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| REMEMBERING JOE—Penn State football trading cards, candles and flowers placed by fans are displayed near a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State University campus on Jan. 22, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
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“Here was this little old school from the East that didn’t know how to compete with the bigger conferences,” said Charlie Pittman, who played running back at Penn State from 1967-69.
That’s what others said about Penn State. The Nittany Lions knew better.
With players such as Pittman, Franco Harris, Lydell Mitchell, Jack Ham and Mike Reid, Paterno changed that in 1968 and ‘69, with back-to-back undefeated seasons.
Neither earned the Nittany Lions a national championship. They had to settle for No. 2 in the AP’s college football poll each year, but Penn State was now a national powerhouse and Paterno was a coaching star.
His career started modestly in 1966, going 5-5 in his first season as the replacement for his mentor, Rip Engle. The East hadn’t had a national title winner since Syracuse in 1959 and was looked upon as a weak region in the college football landscape.
Paterno’s first team lost 42-8 to No. 1 Michigan State and 49-11 to No. 4 UCLA, and the ‘67 season started with a loss to Navy.
Instead of being loyal to the upperclassmen, “He decided to play the best guys,” Pittman said.
The Nittany Lions beat the Hurricanes 17-8 in Miami, lost 17-15 to No. 4 UCLA and Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban the next week, and finished the season 8-2-1.
Paterno had a keen eye for talent and was skilled at finding the best ways to use it.
“He took quarterbacks and made them linebackers. He took running backs and made them defensive backs,” said Pittman, who played two years in the NFL and now is the vice president of publishing company based in South Bend, Ind.
And long before every football coach talked about the “process” of preparing a team, Paterno pored over the smallest details and implored his players to do the same.
“Take care of the small stuff and the big things will take care of themselves,” was one of Paterno’s messages, Pittman said. That meant on the practice field and in the classroom.
“Penn State won because he wanted to recruit people with the same values he had,” Pittman said. “People who wanted to compete at the highest level and people who wanted to participate and truly enjoy college, not just to play football.”
Paterno called it his “Grand Experiment.”
“I always tell people we came to Penn State as young kids and when we left there we were men and the reason for that was Joe Paterno,” Mitchell said.
Paterno and Penn State finally won the national championship in 1982 and he added another in 1986. The “Grand Experiment” unveiled in 1967 had produced an elite college football program.
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