Dec 21, 2024
Penn State head coach James Franklin watches from the sideline during the first half of the Big Ten championship NCAA college football game against Oregon, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
Penn State’s first-ever game in the new 12-team College Football Playoff is a historic event, and it comes against a team that played a unique role in the Nittany Lions’ history.
Southern Methodist was the opponent in the 1948 Cotton Bowl – only the second bowl game the Lions ever played in and their first since the 1923 Rose Bowl – and the teams played to a 13-13 tie.
More significant than the outcome was what the Lions overcame during the experience.
Because the South was segregated in those days, and Blacks were not permitted in Dallas hotels, Penn State was given an option to leave its two Black players, star halfback Wally Triplett and receiver Dennie Hoggard, at home or stay at a Naval base 14 miles outside of town.
The Lions, undefeated and ranked No. 4 at the time, stayed at the Naval base but still did not feel welcome.
The 1947 team was made up of players who had served their country and then came or returned to PSU on the GI Bill.
“They went into town (Dallas) and broke some rules,” Penn State historian Lou Prato said in an interview this week.
“They were men — half the team were veterans of World War II,” Paul Suhey, who captained the 1978 team and whose father, Steve, was an All-American in 1947, said. “They were insulted. I remember hearing the guys were disappointed because you go to bowl games, and it was supposed to be a reward. They had to get into buses and go into the city. It as an insult in some respects.”
A year earlier, in the 1946 season, Penn State was scheduled to play a game at Miami and was also told not to bring its Black players.
Steve Suhey was part of a leadership contingent that dismissed the subject, telling Miami “We are Penn State,” and the game was canceled.
It became a symbol of unity and though the cheerleaders in the 1970s (including now Saint Francis athletic director Bob Krimmel) were responsible for popularizing the “We Are Penn State” chant, its roots were sewn by the attitude of the 1940s teams.
When the Lions were introduced to the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1948, the team was taunted and fans “were throwing things,” Prato said.
It took a while for the Lions to get their heads, and their hearts, in the game, and they fell behind 13-0 to the unbeaten and third-ranked Mustangs.
The crowd’s attitude changed, Prato said, when the Lions battled back to tie the game at 13 in the fourth quarter on a touchdown by Triplett.
“They gained a lot of respect,” he said.
Triplett and Hoggard not only were the first African-Americans to play in the Cotton Bowl, but Triplett became the first African-American draftee to play for an NFL team (Detroit Lions).
He was inducted into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame in 2018. During his recognition, Cotton Bowl Communications Director Scottie Rodgers told DC News Now, “It didn’t reflect greatly on the Cotton Bowl when the fact that Penn State had to kind of force things to happen because the South still wanted them to leave their Black players behind. And Penn State said, ‘No, we’re not doing that.’”
Paul Suhey has a picture of his dad with All-American Doak Walker from that Cotton Bowl, but he only found it years later in a book, “The Hig,” about his grandfather, Bob Higgins, who coached the Lions from 1930-48.
“My dad didn’t talk much about football or the war,” he said. “I heard more about it from my mom (Ginger, Higgins’ daughter). I didn’t even know my dad was an All-American until I was running around in Rec Hall as a kid and saw his picture.”
Tied 13-13, Penn State had a chance to win the Cotton Bowl, but Ed Czekaj, who later became the Nittany Lions’ athletic director, missed an extra point that could have been called either way.
Prato has seen the video several times.
“You see the ball going over the top of the goal post,” he said, adding the official’s call was delayed. “You can’t tell whether it’s right or wrong.”
Still, Prato said, “That team put Penn State on the map.”
Penn State and SMU only played once since – in 1978, Suhey’s senior year on the team that went unbeaten but lost to Alabama for the national championship.
The Lions beat the Mustangs 26-21 that day.
“They got up on us early, and then we turned (Matt) Millen and (Bruce) Clark loose on them,” Suhey said.
As for today, Suhey said, “History has come back around. It’s neat, I think – a milestone (playoff) and now we start with a team we have history with.”
“It’s really ironic,” Prato said.
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