Former Penn State linebacker Chuck Beatty still vividly remembers stepping off the team bus in 1948, when three men he had never seen before approached him.

The men claimed they were simply there to take Penn State's black players to stay with black ministers. The two sides argued for about 10 minutes until a decision was finally made.

"We said, 'We stay together' and got back onto the bus," Beatty said, adding the entire team ended up staying at a local air base.

The men were looking for Penn State's two black players, halfback Wally Triplett and tight end Dennie Hoggard. The Nittany Lions were prepared to play the first interracial game in Texas that pitted them against Southern Methodist in the Cotton Bowl.

Although the 13-13 stalemate looked like any other game, the meaning was much more important. It helped spur integration in a place where it was uncommon -- the South.

"Wally Triplett and Dennie Hoggard were major figures in the civil rights movement that no one knows about," former Penn State All-Sports Museum director Lou Prato said. "I think the implications of the event are even greater today."

Although the civil rights movement did not reach its height until later on, Triplett still helped break that initial color barrier.

Triplett, now 81 and living in Michigan, was the first black draftee to play in the NFL and was also the first black Penn State football player to receive a varsity letter.

"Sports can go a long way in helping us solve some of our social problems," Triplett said in a phone interview last week. "After the war, it was only a matter of time before attitudes would be changed."

Still, that time wouldn't come for quite a while. In 1946, Hoggard and Triplett had been excluded from playing in the South when the stage was set for Penn State to play Miami (Fla.).

It was custom at the time for a northern team to leave its black players at home, but Penn State called a meeting to discuss whether it would travel to Miami without Hoggard and Triplett.

The team decided to cancel the game instead of traveling south without the entire team.

Triplett recalled that after the meeting, someone asked team captain Steve Suhey if any more meetings would take place. Suhey replied with, "No, we are Penn State."

As far as Suhey was concerned, the team would never leave home without everyone, black or white. The move was unprecedented at that time.

"I was just an actor," Triplett said. "Things happened at a given time, and I just happened to be in the middle of it."

The impact of Triplett on the field was just as great as his impact off. Triplett scored the Nittany Lions' game-tying touchdown of the 1948 Cotton Bowl. SMU's star back, Doak Walker, added a touchdown through the air as well as one on the ground.

"Everybody knows about Doak Walker, but Doak Walker wasn't as good as Triplett," Joe Paterno said during a 2006 press conference.