If you've ever stepped foot on the Penn State campus, read anything about the history of the football team, or had even the slightest interest in the Nittany Lions, you know the scene.
Being carried off the field of the Louisiana Superdome on the shoulders of a few lineman-types is Joe Paterno. His trademark tie is slightly loosened and twisted, and his eyes are completely covered by darkened glasses.
You can't understand the joy in his heart at the moment by looking at his face. It's difficult to tell if he's even smiling. However, his arm raised in victory tells you all you need to know. That was the day the Lions got to say, without argument from the pollsters, that they were No. 1.
In the 20 years since that team's 27-23 win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 1983, culminated its 1982 national championship season, that picture has become no less ubiquitous. However, for many Penn State fans, its meaning has partially changed. To younger fans, it is a snapshot of glory days past, but to those who suffered through all of the near misses, it represents the first breakthrough.
It was the first time Penn State was recognized throughout the country as a national power, the first time it could point to a national championship as evidence that it belonged among the greatest of the great in college football.
"When I see that, I just think 'Finally,'" says the team's backup tight end, Kirk Bowman, whose father also played at Penn State. "I had lived in State College when I was a kid, and I was watching Penn State games for as long as I can remember. Penn State had been denied so many times, and it seemed like the program never got nationwide respect. I was really proud to be on a team that for the first time got recognition as national champion."
It took a special team to break down that last barrier, one that could stay grounded after big victories but keep from unraveling in defeat. One that had the tangibles -- a dynamite offense and an adequate defense -- and the intangibles -- outstanding leadership and focus. It also took something that no Lions team had enough of before -- luck.
The Lions had never won a title before that season, despite the fact that in Paterno's 16 previous seasons as head coach the Lions won 10 or more games 10 times. Three times before that season, in 1968, 1969 and 1973, the Lions had finished unbeaten but were shunned by the pollsters for having easy schedules.
As the Lions began to play more college football heavyweights the respect started to come, but in their one previous chance to prove themselves champions on the field they fell short. Six inches short, in fact.
On the very field on which they were eventually crowned champions, the Lions were defeated by Alabama in the 1979 Sugar Bowl on a goal-line stand. Penn State running back Mike Guman was stopped six inches away from the end zone by Crimson Tide linebacker Barry Krause on fourth down late in the fourth quarter, and the Lions left New Orleans heartbroken.
The team that would change Penn State's misfortune didn't enter the fateful 1982 season with much more hoopla than usual. If anything, they were expected to have trouble matching the 1981 team, which spent time in the No. 1 spot before losing to Miami and Alabama. That squad finished strong, knocking off then-No. 1 Pittsburgh 48-14 and beating Southern California 26-10 in the Fiesta Bowl, but it also graduated 11 starters.
"I think we knew we were going to be a very good football team," linebacker Scott Radecic says. "But I don't think there were any expectations that we were going to be that great. We were just thinking about how to fill the voids."
Even with those losses, the 1982 squad still came back with a lot of firepower. Running back Curt Warner returned after an All-American season in 1981. Redshirt junior quarterback Todd Blackledge, who had been starting since his freshman season, had vastly improved since the previous year. He had thrown more interceptions (14) than touchdowns (12) the season before, but had a huge game against Pittsburgh with 262 passing yards and two touchdowns.
He had plenty of weapons. Wide receivers Kenny Jackson and Greg Garrity, tight end Mike McCloskey and fullback Jonathan Williams would all go on to play in the NFL.
The offensive line was the biggest question mark, with All-Americans Mike Munchak and Sean Farrell gone, but it proved to be adequate.
The group would become the most balanced offensive team the Lions had produced by that time. With the components of a great passing game in place, Paterno ditched his "three yards and a cloud of dust" mentality.
He shocked everyone by allowing Blackledge to let the ball fly more than 24 times in each of the first five games, while never giving Warner more than 15 carries in any of them. It took Blackledge only five weeks to break Penn State's single-season touchdown passes record, which was 15 before he posted 22 that year.
By season's end, the running game had improved and Warner was putting up huge numbers, finishing with over 1,000 yards. The Lions still became the first group to win a national championship while passing for more yards than they rushed, but their balance forced other teams to pick their poison.
"We felt like we were going to score every time we took the field," Warner says. "We played with a sense of urgency, knowing that every one of us had to do our jobs. Todd could obviously throw the ball, and we had enough guys that we knew could make plays that we felt, if we did our jobs, we could score every time."
The defense had a couple of stars in defensive end Walker Lee Ashley and safety Mark Robinson, but as a whole, they were a bend-but-don't-break-team. They allowed opposing offenses to post high yardage totals, but kept them from breaking big plays and stifled them in the red zone. They held teams under 290 yards of total offense just once, but they allowed more than 30 points only twice.
"Since the offense was so explosive, we could afford to play conservative defense," retired defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky says. "We had a lot of intelligent guys who stepped it up when we got closer to the goal line. You always got the sense that someone would rise up and make a play in those situations."
Many players on that team believe to this day that the 1981 team was more talented than the championship squad. What set the 1982 squad apart was chemistry and a team attitude that mixed confidence with conscientiousness.
"We were confident, but at the same time we were running scared," Bowman says. "We knew we could beat anybody, but we knew we had to play hard on every play or we were going to get beat. It's difficult to balance both of those things, but I think that was the biggest part of our success."
That chemistry was bolstered by a leadership system that kept the entire team close. There were no cliques on the team, and the upperclassmen got along well with the younger players.
"That was a real team," says safety Mike Zordich, a freshman in '82. "It was a great bunch of guys that were always hanging out together. Everyone got along. I was a freshman, and I felt like I was accepted. That's the most important thing I took into the rest of my career from that team."
The Lions began the season at No. 8 in the AP poll, but a grueling schedule gave them a lot of chances to move up. They got their first opportunity by winning their first three games to set up a Sept. 25 clash with then-No. 2 Nebraska.
The game was televised nationally by CBS, and was the first night game at Beaver Stadium. CBS had to bring in temporary lights, which provided a big-game atmosphere suitable for the contest.
The Lions went up 21-7 early in the second half, but the Cornhuskers came back and took a 24-21 lead with 1:18 to go. The Lions started the game's final drive at the Cornhusker 35.
"There was no sense of panic," McCloskey says. "Blackledge just came into the huddle and took control. He told us, 'Hey, we do this every day in practice, let's go get this done.' We all had enough confidence that the other guys would do their jobs, and each of us knew if we did our own, we were going to get the job done."
In nine plays, Blackledge led the Lions to the Nebraska 17-yard line with 27 seconds left. On second down and four, he hit McCloskey near the sideline at the two-yard line. The replay would show that McCloskey might have been out of bounds when he caught the ball, but the referee didn't see it that way.
On the next play, with nine seconds left, Blackledge threw a low pass into the end zone to Bowman, who had moved to tight end from guard after working as a defensive end and linebacker. He had been nicknamed "Stonehands" for dropping a touchdown pass against Rutgers. His hands were much softer on this play as he dove to haul in the game-winner, setting off bedlam in Beaver Stadium.
The Lions rose to No. 3 in the polls, inciting national championship talk among the Penn State faithful. After a week off, however, it all seemingly crumbled at Legion Field in Birmingham against then-No. 4 Alabama.
The Lions came back from a 21-7 deficit, and were behind just 24-21 in the fourth quarter. However, with 4:48 to go in the game, punt protector Mike Suter backed into punter Ralph Giacomarro, blocking his team's own punt and giving the Crimson Tide the ball deep in Lions territory. The Tide scored two plays later, made a two point conversion and tacked on another score to win 42-21.
The same point at which the Lions thought they had lost any hope of a national title was the moment they took their biggest step toward winning it. The emotional dip from two weeks before was tremendous and the squad was down, but the leaders made a statement. Fullback Joel Coles stepped up in the locker room and declared that the Lions would not lose again.
"I think it was a wake up call, because we realized we were capable of being beaten if we didn't play our best," offensive tackle Bill Contz says. "It showed us we were vulnerable, and we caught it early enough to rebound. We set about from there to make something out of the rest of the season. We weren't going to lose again. That was a testament to this team's ability not to throw in the towel."
The Lions started a string of victories the next week, hammering Syracuse 28-7 while Warner got on track with his first 100-yard performance of the season. They then beat No. 13 West Virginia, Boston College and North Carolina State.
As the Lions were getting it together in the win column, the pieces were starting to fall into place. They had fallen back to No. 8 after the loss to Alabama and there were eight teams in Div. I with perfect records. Two more had ties as their only blemish. However, those teams started falling immediately.
A week after defeating the Lions, the No. 2 Crimson Tide lost to Tennessee. No. 1 Washington went down next, losing to Stanford on Oct. 30.
Pitt, then No. 1, was dealt its first loss by the Fighting Irish, 31-16, on Nov. 6. Unbeaten Arkansas and UCLA fell the same day.
The Lions climbed to No. 5 in the polls in the week going into their Nov. 13, showdown at No. 13 Notre Dame. The Lions pulled out a hard-fought 24-14 victory, and on the other side of the country, Arizona State, another unbeaten, had its national championship hopes spoiled by Washington. The next week, No. 2 Southern Methodist suffered its only blemish, tying Arkansas. Penn State leapfrogged the Mustangs and No. 3 Nebraska. The Lions needed only to defeat No. 5 Pitt at Beaver Stadium to get a shot at the national championship. They did so, coming behind from a 7-3 halftime deficit to win 19-10, setting up the "Dream Bowl" matchup with No. 1 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
The Lions were shocked to get the breaks their undefeated predecessors never got.
"After we lost to Alabama, and even as we were getting back on track, I just thought there was no use thinking about it," Garrity says. "Too many things had to happen. But slowly and surely, everything happened. I just thought it was fated. Too many things had to go our way."
The Lions knew not to celebrate the opportunity, but to focus and prepare for it. The defense focused on stopping Heisman Trophy-winning running back Herschel Walker, and the offense looked for holes in the Georgia defense. After a month of preparation, no Penn State player believed the Lions wouldn't be champions on New Year's night.
Though the Lions surprised the Bulldogs early, building up a 20-3 lead, the No. 1 team in the nation fought back to make the score 20-10 at halftime, then scored on the opening drive of the second half to get within three. The Lions went up by 10 again when Garrity made a brilliant diving catch for a 47-yard touchdown, but the Bulldogs scored with 3:53 left to keep the Lions on edge.
They kept focus, however, running out the clock to win their first ever national championship. They celebrated in style with a party in their hotel that lasted well into the night.
As the Lions were flying into Harrisburg the next day, the polls came in. Though SMU made a decent argument by winning the Cotton Bowl 7-3 against Pitt to finish 11-0-1, the 11-1 Lions were No. 1 in both polls.
"I'll never forget when we were getting off the plane in Harrisburg," center Nick Haden says. "Joe got on the public address system and said 'Congratulations national champions. I just thought 'Holy Christ, national champions!' With that, all my teammates and I knew it was official. It was just like 'Wow, we're there. We really did it.'"
They got off the plane to find an astounding fan gathering. Well-wishers crowded around the airport and lined the streets for the entire 90-mile trip from Harrisburg to State College. Some towns brought out their fire trucks to escort the Lions' buses. The team made several stops along the way for Paterno to deliver victory speeches. It returned to State College to find a similar outpouring. With as long a wait as the Lions' fans had experienced, with all of the almosts and all of the should-have-beens, they were enjoying the moment to its fullest.
Even after it had all settled, the Lions still had a hard time fathoming what they had done. Garrity appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated under a headline that read "No. 1 at last." He got a kick out of it, but didn't quite understand its importance at the time.
"In hindsight I wish I would have called my parents about it," Garrity says. "I didn't, and they didn't get any copies. I realize it's a bigger deal now, but then I just had so much going on. I got a few copies, but I think I've signed every one that was ever distributed. In hindsight, I've realized that that is one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals."
Warner, Jackson, Ashley and Robinson were all named All-Americans, and Blackledge won the Davey O'Brien Award. In all, 20 players from the team would eventually be drafted into the NFL, and many had lengthy careers. Many of those that never played professionally, and more that did, eventually went on to successes outside of athletics. Blackledge, a CBS college football color analyst, is the most visible, but many others have gone on to hold prestigious jobs. Even though most are far away from sports circles, they are constantly reminded of that great team.
"I wear my national championship ring to work," linebacker Ken Kelley says. "And still, after 20 years, it's a conversation piece."
Though the recognition hasn't faded much in 20 years, the Lions' close ties to each other have been worn away by time, distance and responsibility. Though there is a concentration of ex-players in Pittsburgh that occasionally meet for lunch, those meetings are becoming more rare because of the commitments the former Lions have to their jobs and families. Many other players, such as Warner, who owns a car dealership in Washington, and Radecic, who works in an engineering design firm in Kansas City, are already hindered by the commitments the other players face, and are also geographically isolated from most of their former teammates.
On Sept. 14, before the current Lions kick off against Nebraska in another nationally televised night game, this time with permanent lights, a large portion of that team will reunite in State College to play a round of golf, fill in the gaps of the past 20 years and remember the old times. They will likely recall Stonehands' catch, Garrity's dive, and Joe, sitting about six feet above the ground, finding out what it's like to be a national champion.
