December 13, 1973: John Cappelletti's Heisman Speech

As a native of New Jersey, and a fan of the football team at Rutgers University, I loathed Penn State University, their Nittany Lions, and their head coach, Joe Paterno, long before it was cool. But they have provided perhaps the greatest speech any college football player has ever given.

December 13, 1973: Penn State running back John Cappelletti wins the Heisman Trophy, as yet the only Nittany Lion so honored. His acceptance speech transcended sports.

Born in 1952 in the Philadelphia suburb of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, he was apparently no relation to New England Patriots legend Gino Cappelletti. He graduated from the storied Monsignor Bonner High School. He did not play for Penn State in his freshman season, 1970, because the NCAA did not let freshmen play on the varsity until 1972. He was a defensive back in his sophomore season, 1971, because the starting running back slots were occupied by Franco Harris and Lydell Mitchell, who went to 12 Pro Bowls between them. He did start as a junior in 1972.

In 1973, helping Penn State complete an undefeated regular season, he rushed for 1,522 yards and scored 17 touchdowns in 11 games. Paterno would later call him the best player he ever coached. Ohio State also went through the regular season undefeated, but they had 3 players splitting the votes that only 1 would have gotten: Offensive tackle John Hicks finished 2nd, sophomore running back Archie Griffin finished 5th, and linebacker Randy Gradishar finished 6th.

Giving his acceptance speech at the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan, after having been seated next to newly-sworn-in Vice President Gerald Ford, himself an All-American center at the University of Michigan in 1935, Cappelletti said:

I'm very happy to do something like this. I thought about it since the Heisman was announced 1- days ago, and this is to dedicate a trophy that a lot of people earned, I've earned, my parents and the people I've mentioned, and numerous other people that are here tonight and been with me for a long time.

The youngest member of my family, Joseph, is very ill. He has leukemia. If I can dedicate this trophy to him tonight, and give him a couple days of happiness, this is worth everything.

I think a lot of people think that I go through a lot on Saturdays and during the week, as most athletes do, and you get your bumps and bruises, and it is a terrific battle out there on the field. Only for me, it is on Saturdays, and it's only in the Fall. For Joseph, it is all year 'round, and it is a battle that is unending with him. And he puts up with much more than I'll ever put up with. And I think that this trophy is more his than mine, because he has been a great inspiration to me.

At the Heisman ceremony. Left to right:

Anna, Joey, John Jr., John Sr.

It was similar to the speech that Gale Sayers gave in New York in 1970, upon receiving the NFL's George S. Halas Most Courageous Player Award, named for the owner of his team, the Chicago Bears. Despite having led the League in rushing after surgery on both knees in 1969, Sayers dedicated the award to an even more courageous teammate, running back Brian Piccolo, who was dying of cancer.

Cappelletti's speech brought those big tough football men to tears. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the famed "TV priest" of the 1950s, had been asked to deliver the ceremony's benediction. He told a national TV audience, "There is no need for a benediction. God has already blessed you with John Cappelletti." Between this, and the Italian ancestry of both player and head coach, the viewing audience could have been excused for thinking that, like Notre Dame, Penn State was a Catholic school, instead of a State school.

(I used to make that same mistake with Temple University, thinking it was either Catholic or Jewish. Villanova, St. Joseph's and La Salle are Catholic schools in or around Philadelphia, but Temple is not.)

Despite their undefeated record, being an independent meant that Penn State meant that they had no Conference Championship to play for, and they didn't play a single ranked team until their Thanksgiving Saturday matchup with arch-rival University of Pittsburgh, and even they were only ranked Number 20. Penn State won that game, but remained at Number 6. In Cappelletti's last college game, Penn State beat Louisiana State University (LSU) in the Orange Bowl, but stayed Number 6 in the last poll. For the 3rd time in the last 6 years, the Nittany Lions had gone undefeated for an entire season, and yet were denied the National Championship. Not until 1982 would they be awarded one.

Joey Cappelletti hung on until 1976, at the age of 13. In 1977, the film Something for Joey was made about the brothers.

John Cappelletti played for the Los Angeles Rams from 1974 to 1979, and the San Diego Chargers from 1980 to 1983. But, like so many Heisman winners, his professional career was a disappointment, in his case due to injuries. The Rams reached Super Bowl XIV in the 1979-80 season, but Cappelletti was unable to play in it.

He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame, and the Orange Bowl Hall of Honor. On September 7, 2013, at their home opener, Penn State honored their 1973 football team, and retired Cappelletti's Number 22. He remains the only Penn State athlete to have his number retired.

Cappelletti moved to Laguna Niguel, California, with his wife Betty and 4 sons. Betty's sister is the daughter of another Heisman Trophy winner, Alan Ameche, who won the Trophy with Wisconsin in 1954, and starred in the NFL for the Baltimore Colts.

UPDATE: In 2023, on the 50th Anniversary of the award and the speech, Cappelletti was interviewed. He said, "The speech gave me an opportunity to express some things I think on all our behalf’s. Just what we were feeling. I don’t think even I expected it to come out like that. It’s something you can’t really rehearse. It was just a feeling at the time, the feeling of all my family, not just myself."

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December 13, 1973 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 2 games in the NBA. The Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 97-94 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now named the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.) And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Phoenix Suns, 119-108 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The San Antonio Spurs beat the Virginia Squires, 96-94 at the Scope in Norfolk, Virginia. And the San Diego Conquistadors beat the Memphis Tams, 107-104 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

There were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders lost to the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Atlanta Flames, 6-1 at The Omni in Atlanta.

And there was 1 game in the World Hockey Association: The Toronto Toros beat the Cleveland Crusaders, 3-1 at the Varsity Arena in Toronto.

September 17, 1960: Beaver Stadium Opens

A "White Out Game"

September 17, 1960: Beaver Stadium opens on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University in State College, 192 miles from Center City Philadelphia, 88 miles from the State Capitol in Harrisburg, and 137 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh. Ranked Number 19 in the nation at the time, Penn State beat Boston University, 20-0.

For anybody who grew up from the late 1960s into the early 21st Century, it's hard to imagine anybody but Joe Paterno coaching the Nittany Lions. But, at this point, he was still an assistant coach under Charles "Rip" Engle, who led them from 1950 to 1965, after which point Paterno coached them until the scandal that brought him down in 2011, followed by his death from cancer early in 2012.

From their debut in 1887 until 1891, Penn State played football on the lawn in front of their administration building, "Old Main." From 1892 to 1908, they played at Beaver Field, named for James A. Beaver, who was Governor of Pennsylvania from 1887 to 1891, and then president of the University's Board of Trustees. It stood between present-day Osmond and Frear Laboratories.

In 1909, New Beaver Field, seating 30,000, was built on the original site of the Nittany Lion Inn (the current version dates to 1931), where the current stadium's parking deck now stands. Penn State had some success there, but not like what was to come under Paterno.

They outgrew the stadium in the 1950s, and Beaver Stadium was built, with an initial capacity of 69,000. With a current official capacity of 106,572, it is the 2nd-largest stadium in North America, behind the University of Michigan's Michigan Stadium. Its record crowd is 110,889, on September 29, 2018, for what turned out to be a 27-26 loss to Ohio State. (UPDATE: That record was broken on November 2, 2024, with 111,030 coming to see another loss to Ohio State, 20-13.)

The stadium is known for its "S-Zone," where students are all given white and blue shirts, supplied by the Pennsylvania State University Lion Ambassadors, to create an "S" for "State"; and "White Out" games, where everybody wears white shirts.

Opening the same day as Beaver Stadium was University Stadium, on the campus of the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. UNM played the University of Mexico, known to Mexican soccer fans as "Pumas" for their wild feline mascot. The visitors did not adjust well to the American version of football, as the host Lobos beat them, 77-6.

*

September 17, 1960 was a Saturday. Baseball pitcher John Franco was born. So was Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who originally operated Elmo on Sesame Street.

These other notable college football games were played:

* Number 1 Syracuse, the defending National Champions, opened their season the following week. So did Number 5 Illinois, Number 8 Michigan State, Number 9 Clemson, Number 10 Oklahoma, and unranked Notre Dame. So did New Jersey's teams, Rutgers and Princeton, against each other, in a 13-8 Rutgers win in Princeton.

* Number 2 Mississippi, a.k.a. Ole Miss, beat the University of Houston, 42-0 at Rice Stadium in Houston.

* Number 3 Washington beat the University of the Pacific, 55-6 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Number 4 Texas were upset by Nebraska, 14-13 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas.

* The night before, Number 6 University of Southern California (USC) were upset by Oregon State, 14-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 7 University of Pittsburgh were upset by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 8-7 at the L.A. Coliseum.

* Number 11 Texas Christian University (TCU) were upset by Kansas, 21-7 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas.

* Number 13 Georgia were upset by Alabama, 21-6 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Among the service academies, Army beat the University of Buffalo, 37-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy beat Boston College, 22-7 at Alumni Stadium in the Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts; and Air Force opened their season the next week.

One game was played in the brand-new American Football League: The Boston Patriots beat the New York Titans, 28-24 at the Polo Grounds. Those teams would become known as the New England Patriots and the New York Jets, respectively.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3 at Yankee Stadium. Bob Turley started, but Jim Coates ended up as the winning pitcher. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra hit home runs. Roger Maris went 0-for-4. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Ted Williams hit his 520th career home run. At the time, this was 3rd in baseball history behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx. He would hit 1 more. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with a walk. At the time, he had 82 career home runs. He would hit 491 more.

* The Kansas City Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-5 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Ken Hamlin's home run was the 1st of 3 runs the A's scored in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-4 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium the next season. Al Kaline went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Don Cardwell was the winning pitcher. The Cubs scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 8th, 2 off Sandy Koufax, 3 off Larry Sherry. Earlier, Ernie Banks hit a home run off Koufax. The next year, in Spring Training, Sherry would tell Koufax to stop trying to strike everybody out. It was among the greatest advice in baseball history.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Braves, 5-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Tony Curry hit a bases-loaded double in the top of the 10th inning. Hank Aaron went 2-for-4. Eddie Mathews went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-1 at the 1st Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Stan Musial did not play. Willie Mays went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a groundout. Willie McCovey appeared as a pinch-hitter, but did not reach base.

* With some irony, the major league team the closest to Penn State, the Pittsburgh Pirates, were rained out of their game with the Cincinnati Reds, although it was at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Pirates swept, 5-3 and 1-0.

Vernon Law won his 20th game of the season in the opener, on his way to the Cy Young Award, then given to the best pitcher in both Leagues. Dick Stuart and Don Hoak hit home runs. In the nightcap, Wilmer "Vinegar Bend" Mizell pitched a 3-hit shutout, outpitching Bob Purkey. The only run came in the top of the 7th inning, when Dick Schofield doubled Hoak home. Over the 2 games, Roberto Clemente went 1-for-8 with a walk.

And in English soccer, Arsenal defeated North-East team Newcastle United, 5-0 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London. David Herd scored 3 goals.

January 2, 1987: Penn State vs. Miami, "The Game of the Century"

January 2, 1987: The Fiesta Bowl is held at Sun Devil Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona. The University of Miami entered the game ranked Number 1 in the country. Pennsylvania State University, a.k.a. "Penn State," came in ranked Number 2. The winner would win the National Championship.

It was one of those games that, in the pregame hype, was tagged "The Game of the Century." Fortunately, it was one of those that lived up to the billing.

Miami had won the title for the 1983 season, and was going for their 2nd. Penn State thought they had teams worthy of the National Championship in 1968, 1969 and 1973, going undefeated each season. But, each time, it was awarded to another team. In the 1982 season, they were finally awarded the title.

In the 1986 regular season, Miami went 11-0, having beaten both then-Number 1 Oklahoma and then-Number 20 Florida State at home at the Orange Bowl stadium. They also won road games against South Carolina, Florida, West Virginia, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

Head coach Jimmy Johnson could call on that year's Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback Vinny Testaverde, who ended up playing 21 seasons in the NFL, making the Pro Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Jets, and passing for over 46,000 yards and 275 touchdowns; receiver Brian Blades, later a Pro Bowler with the Seattle Seahawks; Brian's brother, safety Bennie Blades, later a Pro Bowler with the Detroit Lions; and defensive end Russell Maryland, a 3-time Pro Bowler and 3-time Super Bowl winner with the Dallas Cowboys.

Penn State also went 11-0, beating then-Number 2 Alabama away, and also winning away to Boston College, West Virginia and Notre Dame. The Nittany Lions were led by running back D.J. Dozier, who would go on to play in Major League Baseball as well as in the NFL; and linebacker Shane Conlan, who made 3 Pro Bowls and played in 4 Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills.

Sports Illustrated named head coach Joe Paterno their Sportsman of the Year for 1986, citing him for showing it was possible to win big while running a "clean program." Indeed, as with the 1988 Miami-Notre Dame "Catholics vs. Convicts" game, this was seen as a contest between good, Penn State and their "clean program"; and evil, Miami and their urban, hip-hop, "thug" image, trash-talking, and wearing army-style fatigues as they got off the plane. It would be years before the general public learned just how far off the mark that really was.

Even if Miami's image had been accurate, Penn State didn't care. Linebacker Pete Giftopoulos said, "We were a team that couldn't be intimidated, and that's what Miami liked to do to other players. "How are you going to intimidate a bunch of steel-town kids from Pittsburgh, Ohio, Pennsylvania? You just can't do that."

An estimated 21.9 million people watched this game on NBC, and that is believed to be an all-time record for a college football bowl game.

The 1st quarter ended scoreless. In the 2nd quarter, Penn State fumbled, and Miami recovered at the Penn State 23. Four plays later, Melvin Bratton scored a touchdown that put the 'Canes ahead, 7-0. But it would prove to be their only touchdown of the night.

The Lions came right back, going 74 yards in 13 plays, with John Shaffer scoring from 4 yards out with 1:14 left in the half. The teams went into the locker rooms tied 7-7.

There was no scoring in the 3rd quarter. Early in the 4th quarter, Mark Seeling kicked a field goal to put "The U" back on top, 10-7. Conlan returned his 2nd interception of the game to the Miami 5-yard line, and Dozier gave the Lions their 1st lead with a touchdown run, 14-10, with 8:13 to go.

With 3:07 left, Miami began their last drive, converting a 4th down with a 31-yard pass from Testaverde to Brian Blades. With 45 seconds left, Testaverde got the 'Canes to the Penn State 5. But he got sacked on 2nd & goal, and threw incomplete on 3rd down. With 18 seconds left, it was 4th & goal. Testaverde thought he had an open receiver in the end zone, but it was intercepted by Giftopoulos, his 2nd pick of the game, the 5th off Testaverde, clinching the National Championship for Penn State.

Miami rebounded the next season, winning the National Championship, and again in 1989, and again in 1991 (albeit in a split poll). But Johnson would only be there for the 1st of those. In 1989, he was hired as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, leading them to 2 Super Bowl wins, and making himself the 1st head coach ever to win both a National Championship and a Super Bowl -- the 1st since Paul Brown in 1942 and 1950 to win both an NCAA and an NFL Championship.

*

January 2, 1987 was a Friday. No other bowl games were played on the day. The day before, Arizona State had beaten Michigan in the Rose Bowl, Oklahoma beat Arkansas in the Orange Bowl, Nebraska beat Louisiana State in the Sugar Bowl, Ohio State beat Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, and Auburn beat USC in the Florida Citrus Bowl.

Baseball was out of season. There were 10 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Detroit Pistons, 129-128 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls, 113-99 at the Boston Garden. Larry Bird scored 37 points, and Michael Jordan scored 34.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Washington Bullets, 118-101 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. Dominique Wilkens scored 30.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 91-84 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 116-106 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 117-107 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Denver Nuggets, 114-111 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Hakeem Olajuwon scored 32.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Utah Jazz, 104-99 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. Charles Barkley scored 30.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 155-118 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Despite the huge total, no Laker scored more than Magic Johnson's 32.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Sacramento Kings, 115-109 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Joe Barry Carroll, often mocked as "Joe Barely Cares," scored 35.

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Boston Bruins, 7-2 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-3 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* And the Los Angeles Kings and the Vancouver Canucks played to a 3-3 tie at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.