The Legacy of Paterno and Gavitt

[Carl Spackler]

Well, folks, in a very short amount of time, the two most influential people in the landscape of northeast USA intercollegiate athletics have moved on to a better place. RIP Joe Paterno and Dave Gavitt.

With the unfortunate end of Joe Paterno's reign amidst the disgusting mess that has occurred at Penn State, and the unfortunate business of ESPN and football money driving the reorganization of intercollegiate athletics in the past year, the true legacies of these two gentleman have gotten lost.

Joe Paterno was instrumental in the destruction of college football in the northeast US, and then, with DAve Gavitt, the failure to rebuild it. Dave Gavitt was instrumental in taking the winter sport, played in barns for decades while the snow was on the ground, and making it a national pasttime.

Well that's the short version. ..... Many around here, I hope, have a much greater understanding of intercollegiate athletics in the northeast based on my never ending posts. I only hope.....

Without going into too much detail, Joe Paterno was an Ivy league football player and an Ivy league graduate, in the hey day of Ivy League and Northeast football some 50-60 years ago when college football aside from a handful of programs west and south, was entirely based in the northeast. He was a brilliant man. He went to a small rural land grant college in the middle of Pennsylvania and built an institution through football. Penn State University stands as a monument to the power of football money. Penn State University. There is an unfortunate epitath to that as well - Shakespearean - the dangerous of absolute power. That's all I'll say about that.

But how did he do it? HOw did Penn STate become such a power? Simplicity in itself. The brilliant man at work. Eliminate all competition for your goal, and your goal is easy to achieve. By the mid-late 1970s all of Paterno's competition at Penn State aside from two football proggrams, was eliminated.

He was a major architect/engineer in the destruction of the Ivy league and the Yankee Conference as football recruiting competition, by being an instrumental part of tying top level football status, and the money that goes along with it, to stadium size and football game attendance. With one quick sweep in 1978, all the competition was gone.

Some may not believe me, you'll have to go check, but one of the biggest and powerful football programs in the northeast in the 1970s was not Penn STate. It was UMass. Yup, there was a time when Paterno had big problems in competition with recruiting - against - UMASS.

Football, it always comes down to recruiting. Penn State's greatest successes, came when Paterno had no competition other than Syracuse and BC for players in the 1980s.

The funny thing though....the sad irony....is thta Paterno's plan, did not include the compelte destruction of northeast college football. He wanted to eliminate competition, but then re-establish it, with Penn STate involved.

Here's where Dave GAvitt came in. Intercollegiate basketball, in the northeast, was a fixture for a long, long time. It was the sport that was played in barns, and gyms, when the snow was on the ground. Out of the destruction of northeast athletic conferences at top level competition, based on football, emerged the Big East basketball conference in 1979.

In the mid 1980s, the Big East provided the perfect marriage for Paterno's newly established national powerhouse in Pennsylvania. But the big east leadership, in a vote that to this day, no one really knows who voted for what instead of the handful of people that actually voted - Penn State was rejected from the Big East.

Basketball was to be king in the Northeast. It was for a decade, until the football intercollegiate landscape began to settle and power spread across the country after the destruction of northeast football.

THe first incarnation of the BCS champoinship series in 1991, with the major intercollegiate football conferences across the entire country involves, and at the same time - the formation of the Big East football conference as a member.

Penn State moved west, instead of northeast. The Big East drew an independant from the South...Miami.

The big east remained basketball centric for 20 years until 2011, and in the meantime had many, many football programs come and go, as basketball was kept the main financial and stability concern.

In 2011, with the passing of Dave Gavitt - quite literally the day after he died - the Big East conference due to external forces, almost died too. Not because of football, but because of failing to recognize the importance of football in the national intercollegiate landscape. John Marinatto stepped in.

A few months later, the grand architect of Penn State UNiversity, is now dead and buried too. The Big EAst conference lives on, as a national conference now, and with football priorities.

The re-emergence of northeast college football, as a national power in the intercollegiate athletics, with these two individuals now gone, is inevitable.

I'm very glad that UConn is not only part of it, but will be part of leading the charge. It's more than regrettable that the potential rivalries and natural geographic close competition has been lost due to the decades of work put in by these two individuals and the institutions they built, but again, this is also not the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s anymore, and travel from a place like Hartford, to Idaho, while inconvenient, is not like taking a train from NYC to Chicago.

RIP Joe Paterno and Dave Gavitt. The influence you have had on intercollegiate athletics can not be put into words.

(although I tried.....someday I'll figure out a way to get paid for this....)

 

[AJC88]

dude seriously, relax with the length of posts. I have yet to see you have less than an 8 paragraph essay on any topic in any thread. I'm sure I'll get a War and Peace response to this, but I had to say it nonetheless.

 

[Carl Spackler]

ok

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I have to ask Carl,
We like UMass were DII in the 70's with somewhere around 12 or so scholarships. Sometimes, Coach didn't even have one to give to his top recruits. How could UMass compete with PSU? Didn't know he destroyed the Yankee conference as competition. He didnt manage to stop Rutgers, they started playing at different/higher level at that time, it was the reason why we stopped playing them.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

Well, folks, in a very short amount of time, the two most influential people in the landscape of northeast USA intercollegiate athletics have moved on to a better place. RIP Joe Paterno and Dave Gavitt.

With the unfortunate end of Joe Paterno's reign amidst the disgusting mess that has occurred at Penn State, and the unfortunate business of ESPN and football money driving the reorganization of intercollegiate athletics in the past year, the true legacies of these two gentleman have gotten lost.

Joe Paterno was instrumental in the destruction of college football in the northeast US, and then, with DAve Gavitt, the failure to rebuild it. Dave Gavitt was instrumental in taking the winter sport, played in barns for decades while the snow was on the ground, and making it a national pasttime.

Well that's the short version. ..... Many around here, I hope, have a much greater understanding of intercollegiate athletics in the northeast based on my never ending posts. I only hope.....

Without going into too much detail, Joe Paterno was an Ivy league football player and an Ivy league graduate, in the hey day of Ivy League and Northeast football some 50-60 years ago when college football aside from a handful of programs west and south, was entirely based in the northeast. He was a brilliant man. He went to a small rural land grant college in the middle of Pennsylvania and built an institution through football. Penn State University stands as a monument to the power of football money. Penn State University. There is an unfortunate epitath to that as well - Shakespearean - the dangerous of absolute power. That's all I'll say about that.

But how did he do it? HOw did Penn STate become such a power? Simplicity in itself. The brilliant man at work. Eliminate all competition for your goal, and your goal is easy to achieve. By the mid-late 1970s all of Paterno's competition at Penn State aside from two football proggrams, was eliminated.

He was a major architect/engineer in the destruction of the Ivy league and the Yankee Conference as football recruiting competition, by being an instrumental part of tying top level football status, and the money that goes along with it, to stadium size and football game attendance. With one quick sweep in 1978, all the competition was gone.

Some may not believe me, you'll have to go check, but one of the biggest and powerful football programs in the northeast in the 1970s was not Penn STate. It was UMass. Yup, there was a time when Paterno had big problems in competition with recruiting - against - UMASS.

Football, it always comes down to recruiting. Penn State's greatest successes, came when Paterno had no competition other than Syracuse and BC for players in the 1980s.

The funny thing though....the sad irony....is thta Paterno's plan, did not include the compelte destruction of northeast college football. He wanted to eliminate competition, but then re-establish it, with Penn STate involved.

Here's where Dave GAvitt came in. Intercollegiate basketball, in the northeast, was a fixture for a long, long time. It was the sport that was played in barns, and gyms, when the snow was on the ground. Out of the destruction of northeast athletic conferences at top level competition, based on football, emerged the Big East basketball conference in 1979.

In the mid 1980s, the Big East provided the perfect marriage for Paterno's newly established national powerhouse in Pennsylvania. But the big east leadership, in a vote that to this day, no one really knows who voted for what instead of the handful of people that actually voted - Penn State was rejected from the Big East.

Basketball was to be king in the Northeast. It was for a decade, until the football intercollegiate landscape began to settle and power spread across the country after the destruction of northeast football.

THe first incarnation of the BCS champoinship series in 1991, with the major intercollegiate football conferences across the entire country involves, and at the same time - the formation of the Big East football conference as a member.

Penn State moved west, instead of northeast. The Big East drew an independant from the South...Miami.

The big east remained basketball centric for 20 years until 2011, and in the meantime had many, many football programs come and go, as basketball was kept the main financial and stability concern.

In 2011, with the passing of Dave Gavitt - quite literally the day after he died - the Big East conference due to external forces, almost died too. Not because of football, but because of failing to recognize the importance of football in the national intercollegiate landscape. John Marinatto stepped in.

A few months later, the grand architect of Penn State UNiversity, is now dead and buried too. The Big EAst conference lives on, as a national conference now, and with football priorities.

The re-emergence of northeast college football, as a national power in the intercollegiate athletics, with these two individuals now gone, is inevitable.

I'm very glad that UConn is not only part of it, but will be part of leading the charge. It's more than regrettable that the potential rivalries and natural geographic close competition has been lost due to the decades of work put in by these two individuals and the institutions they built, but again, this is also not the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s anymore, and travel from a place like Hartford, to Idaho, while inconvenient, is not like taking a train from NYC to Chicago.

RIP Joe Paterno and Dave Gavitt. The influence you have had on intercollegiate athletics can not be put into words.

(although I tried.....someday I'll figure out a way to get paid for this....)

"He (Paterno) was a major architect/engineer in the destruction of the Ivy league"

Don't understand. The Ivy League, starting in 1945, evolved from an agreement on basics related to schollies, academic requirements, etc. ending in 1956 with formalization of the present form. Basic to the League was and remains placing sport as an "appropriate" portion of college life. All this occurred ten years before JP got to PA.

 

[upstater]

WV? Pitt? No competition? Come on.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I'm not supposed to write a lot. Until 1978, all the state land grant colleges that made up the Yankee conference were division 1 football. All Ivy league colleges were division 1 football. There was no 1A, or 1-AA, only division 1,2,or3, and yup - it was abased on football scholarships, and football money - the divisions, and they existed for a grand total of 6 years prior to 1-A, and 1-AA, and guess who was involved in making that happen in 1972? the first creation of divisions in college athletics based on football scholarships? Yup - JoePa. The legacy that man has in college football is greater than anyone.

They (the d1 schools in the northeast) all recruited the same kinds of players that Syracuse, Boston College and JoePa and penn state were recruiting. You think northeast competition for players is tough now? Imagine then.

And football, from a youth level through to college was HUGE in new england, and the north east, in general and east coast, because football was the way to get your ride to a great education, if you were the biggest, strongest, fastest kids on your local block from Pennsylvania, north to Canada and east to the Atlantic. Paterno didn't like the recruiting competition.

as for umass in the 1970s, told you , you wouldn't believe me.

WV? Pitt? No competition? Come on.

Thanks for making the point, those schools weren't affected, and Pittsburgh was going to be part of the reconstruction in the 80s.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Let me make this clear. Prior to 1972, the concentration, interest, focus, whaterver words you want to use about college football in the United States, aside from a handful of programs aroudn the west, south and central U.S. was entirely centered on the east coast, and specifically the north east. College football ruled.

In 1972, the first divisions in college football, aroudn football money and revenue streams in intercollegiate athletics were put in place. It happened with creating of the division 1, 2, and 3 college ranks, and it was all based on the number of scholarships that a school could award to football players. Prior to 1972, there were no such restrictions, and compeition intercollegiately, was loosely identified as "major" or "university" level, or by simple "college" level, which meant smaller programs. Post season was entirely by invite to bowl games, except for the Rose bowl. National championships entirely determined by media, and that lasted a long time.....the media, national champoins thing.

Recruiting competition was thinned out for Penn State and the division 1 level in 1972. IT was the very first great divide among collegs and money streams around athletics - all about football. Joe Pa was instrumental.

In 1978, division 1 football was further divided into division 1-A, and 1-AA, and this time, the division was about stadium seating capactity and attendance figures....football money around ticket sales. The next great divide in revenue streams. Who was a big part? Joe Pa. What happened?

The recruiting competition for Penn State in the northeast was thinned out even more down to Yale, Syracuse and Boston College, and Yale bowed out by 1982.

When did Penn State really rise to national prominence now in football folks? When did they get those national championships? They got them when from 1978-1982, Paterno raked in all the top quality players to compete at d-1A level from central pennsylvania and north of maryland all the way to Canada and the Atlantic.

The man was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. He built a national championship football program at Penn State. Dave Gavitt's basketball league got in the way of rebuilding a football league in the north east though, and Penn State ended up an outlier for the league of mid west state colleges.

 

[upstater]

Let me make this clear. Prior to 1972, the concentration, interest, focus, whaterver words you want to use about college football in the United States, aside from a handful of programs aroudn the west, south and central U.S. was entirely centered on the east coast, and specifically the north east. College football ruled.

In 1972, the first divisions in college football, aroudn football money and revenue streams in intercollegiate athletics were put in place. It happened with creating of the division 1, 2, and 3 college ranks, and it was all based on the number of scholarships that a school could award to football players. Prior to 1972, there were no such restrictions, and compeition intercollegiately, was loosely identified as "major" or "university" level, or by simple "college" level, which meant smaller programs. Post season was entirely by invite to bowl games, except for the Rose bowl. National championships entirely determined by media, and that lasted a long time.....the media, national champoins thing.

Recruiting competition was thinned out for Penn State and the division 1 level in 1972. IT was the very first great divide among collegs and money streams around athletics - all about football. Joe Pa was instrumental.

In 1978, division 1 football was further divided into division 1-A, and 1-AA, and this time, the division was about stadium seating capactity and attendance figures....football money around ticket sales. The next great divide in revenue streams. Who was a big part? Joe Pa. What happened?

The recruiting competition for Penn State in the northeast was thinned out even more down to Yale, Syracuse and Boston College, and Yale bowed out by 1982.

When did Penn State really rise to national prominence now in football folks? When did they get those national championships? They got them when from 1978-1982, Paterno raked in all the top quality players to compete at d-1A level from central pennsylvania and north of maryland all the way to Canada and the Atlantic.

The man was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. He built a national championship football program at Penn State. Dave Gavitt's basketball league got in the way of rebuilding a football league in the north east though, and Penn State ended up an outlier for the league of mid west state colleges.

So, all those undefeated seasons prior to your timeline are irrelevant?
You can't have it both ways.

You can't tell us NE football was supreme and at the same time Penn State was going undefeated mainly against NE football

Makes no sense.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Maybe I should have said this also somewehre in there. The criteria that went into the progressive removal of the recruiting competition for Penn State in the 1970's, by the establishment of different levels of competition around football scholarships and stadium size, had little to no effect on college football anywhere outside the major recruiting area for Penn State.

Does anyone here really want to think that wasn't on purpose, and JoePa didn't have anythign to do with it?

 

[Carl Spackler]

So, all those undefeated seasons prior to your timeline are irrelevant?
You can't have it both ways.

You can't tell us NE football was supreme and at the same time Penn State was going undefeated mainly against NE football

Makes no sense.

You're a strange one w/ your support of PSU and yoru presence here, odd. But anyway, I'm weird too.

I'm not saying that college football in the northeast was the best year in and year out. I'm not talking about how many games he won. That claerly came out wrong. sorry.

I'm talking about recruiting. I'm talking about football as a priority in the entire scholastic athletic environment from youth to college. Football, in the northeast from a grade school level, all the way through college, well - I'll put it this way, prior to the 1970s, they way youth and secondary (High school) football is in TExas and florida from grade school, to junior college to all the colleges inbetween high school and UTexas and UMiami in the U.S., it was was exactly the same way it was in the northeast.

Joe Paterno had a big part in making that go away, because it made recruiting difficult for him to maintain the level of success he wanted. As soon as he finished his project, he got his national championships in the 80s, and he barely had to lift a finger to recruit to do it.

That changed in later 80s and 90s as other programs, the same programs that we continually battle right now, started moving into the territory, at the same time, the focus on football from a youth level all the way to college in the northeast has shifted.

The rise of great, great variety of successful youth programs from lacrosse, to soccer, to swimming, to basketball, to baseball to all of it in the north east, is directly related to the decline of football that coincided with the decreasing numbers of football scholarships available to kids in teh northeast - becasue of Joe Paterno.

With the recruiting difficulties and battles that UConn fans are beginning to get a taste of now, I thought this would make for some interesting reading.

 

[upstater]

Maybe I should have said this also somewehre in there. The criteria that went into the progressive removal of the recruiting competition for Penn State in the 1970's, by the establishment of different levels of competition around football scholarships and stadium size, had little to no effect on college football anywhere outside the major recruiting area for Penn State.

Does anyone here really want to think that wasn't on purpose, and JoePa didn't have anythign to do with it?

This happened in the 1960s.

PSU rose to prominence then. The whole Nixon controversy occurred in those early years. Undefeated in '68 and '69.

During this same period, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse (PSU's 3 main rivals) were doing just fine in football. Pitt was achieving national prominence and ND was ND. Cuse was good too.

If you look at the players on those 1960s PSU teams, so many of them made the NFL. They were very talented. Hall of Famers. so I don't get this idea that recruiting suddenly ramped up.

 

[upstater]

You're a strange one w/ your support of PSU and yoru presence here, odd. But anyway, I'm weird too.

I'm not saying that college football in the northeast was the best year in and year out. I'm not talking about how many games he won. That claerly came out wrong. sorry.

I'm talking about recruiting. I'm talking about football as a priority in the entire scholastic athletic environment from youth to college. Football, in the northeast from a grade school level, all the way through college, well - I'll put it this way, prior to the 1970s, they way youth and secondary (High school) football is in TExas and florida from grade school, to junior college to all the colleges inbetween high school and UTexas and UMiami in the U.S., it was was exactly the same way it was in the northeast.

Joe Paterno had a big part in making that go away, because it made recruiting difficult for him to maintain the level of success he wanted. As soon as he finished his project, he got his national championships in the 80s, and he barely had to lift a finger to recruit to do it.

That changed in later 80s and 90s as other programs, the same programs that we continually battle right now, started moving into the territory, at the same time, the focus on football from a youth level all the way to college in the northeast has shifted.

The rise of great, great variety of successful youth programs from lacrosse, to soccer, to swimming, to basketball, to baseball to all of it in the north east, is directly related to the decline of football that coincided with the decreasing numbers of football scholarships available to kids in teh northeast - becasue of Joe Paterno.

With the recruiting difficulties and battles that UConn fans are beginning to get a taste of now, I thought this would make for some interesting reading.

Why would it be odd? This is college sports. Simple stuff. I grew up following UConn basketball and PSU football. Why would things change when I got older?

 

[Carl Spackler]

The great failure of Joe paterno, from a football standpoint, is the failure to re-establish a football league in the northeast USA at the level of competition he had brought Penn State up to, after removing all of the other football programs save Syracuse and BC as recruiting competition. He tried, to re-establish a league, becuase I don't believe for a second that he wanted Penn State in a league with Iowas and Michigans, but because of Dave Gavitt's basketball league he failed.

That's it, that's all I'll write on this.

Promise.

 

[AJC88]

wait wait wait wait wait.... so you're saying Joe Paterno was directly responsible for the decline of youth football in the north east? Do you have ANY sort of source for this, or is it mostly conjecture?

 

[Carl Spackler]

Why would it be odd? This is college sports. Simple stuff. I grew up following UConn basketball and PSU football. Why would things change when I got older?

Sorry if I offended you. For you, I'll write more. I think that Paterno's legacy goes a hell of a lot further in interscholastic athletics than anythign football related, and the horrid mess of the past year and his alleged involvement at PSU is going to obscure it. Rightly so.

There are opportunities for kids in the northeast US, to go on to college and have scholarships through athletics in so very many ways in the current era, because of Joe Paterno. That's his positive legacy.

and I've treid to touch on it a little bit. What the man did by elevating Penn State football, through the mid 1970's was entirely about his ability to coach the game and develop players.

BUT - by the 70's though, he was tired of going through recruiting battles with the smartest, biggest, fastest, athletes that were being looked at the literally, DOZENS of colleges in the northeast, and selling Penn State to them and their parents, when schools like the Ivy's and all the other private and public schools were offering the same kinds of things.

He found a way to be instrumental in eliminating all that competition. Brilliant.

The survival of the fittest implemented in action, and his program at Penn State was among them strongest. He failed to establish the league of survivors of what happened though.

UConn, now plays football in league that spans from coast to coast, because of it.

Do you really disagree with anything I'm writing that's of substance? I get that Penn State football reigns supreme for you.

 

[Carl Spackler]

wait wait wait wait wait.... so you're saying Joe Paterno was directly responsible for the decline of youth football in the north east? Do you have ANY sort of source for this, or is it mostly conjecture?

I think I laid out the theory as clearly as I'm capable of.

 

[Carl Spackler]

This happened in the 1960s.

PSU rose to prominence then. The whole Nixon controversy occurred in those early years. Undefeated in '68 and '69.

During this same period, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse (PSU's 3 main rivals) were doing just fine in football. Pitt was achieving national prominence and ND was ND. Cuse was good too.

If you look at the players on those 1960s PSU teams, so many of them made the NFL. They were very talented. Hall of Famers. so I don't get this idea that recruiting suddenly ramped up.

I don't disagree with any of that. Joe Pa was a fantastic football coach. He had all those players. Yup.

What I'm saying, is that at the time, it was hard as hell for Joe Pa to recruit all those players. He got tired of it. By 1980, he had been an instrumental part of an incredible change in intercollegiate athletics around football, that had very little effect at all on college football anyhwere outside of Penn STate's primary recruiting areas, and very little effect, on those same few schools you mention - I'll add BC.

But all the other schools that were recruiting the same kinds of athletes, were no longer recruiting them by 1980. It became a hell of alot easier for Penn STate (as well as Cuse, ND, BC, and PItt) to recruit the very large region between Ohio, Canada and the Atlantic Ocean.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Won't respond to all, save for a few points:

College football in the Northeast died to a great extent when the Ivies decided to deemphasis (no athletic scholarships) and the Doc Blanchards, Glenn Davis's, Joe Bellino's & Roger Staubachs of the world stopped attending Army & Navy. Sure Syracuse was strong back then, Pitt too, West Virginia, BCU (sort of) and rounding out the bunch was Penn State.

As for New England . . . . what did the Universities of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermon, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine have in common with such Universities as Tennessee, Nebraska, Washington, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, etc? Not much. At least not much when it came to big time sports. New England, in fact, was pretty much small time in football and even in hoops (save for the occasional Holy Cross & PC) to a great extent.

How one corner of the country could be so out of touch with the overall trend (in college sports) in this country is hard to comprehend. Except that they appeared to be trying to become the Junior Ivy League. Penn State did much to shift some semblance of respectability back to the Northeast.

As for UMass. . . they never competed equally (since the 50's anyway) for the same kids as Penn State. The Yankee Conference was closer to Trinity and Williams in those days than they ever were to Penn State. Please!

With respect to hoops, give Dave Gavitt all the credit in the world. The Big East Basketball Conference finally gave the northeast some belief that they could actually field big time programs. No more UConn being big Yankee Conference fish (small pond if there ever was) getting beat by St Joesph's in huge NCAA ocean - or pounded by 47 points by Duke. Problem was the conference couldn't see that football was driving the TV/College sports bus and could only see basketballs. How short sighted it was too not accept Penn State into the Big East. How many Big East schools have a 16K on-campus arena? Syracuse yes, UConn not even close.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Let me say things this way. Many are concerned about Paul Pasqualoni's ability to recruit. I don't know why, but they are. I'm not, the guy knows the landscape.

BUT - if Pasqualoni's successes as a head coach at Syracuse had come from 1979-1994, instead of 1991-2004? I'd be worried about recruiting - very worried. Because there aren't as many high school kids to choose from anymore in the region. REcruiting for Syracuse when MacPherson was there, was a piece of frigging cake during the 80s, same for Paterno at Penn State, and hey - guess when Boston College had it's greatest period of relevance? 1980s. There was no competition for the top athletes other than ND, Cuse, PSU, BC and Pitt, and there were plenty, of football players to pick from coming out of high school levels.

The type of success that the basketball schools enjoyed in the 80s in the big east, was paralled in football, by the handful of schools that were still 1-A in the region and high profile.

By 1990-1991 - it was over. Pasqualoni built his program at Syracuse, with a level of recruiting competition that is very similar to what we have now at UConn. Where there were enough high school kids locally then, there aren't now, due to decline in the nubmers and interest in youth football, but in turn, we now have a much wider range of regions to recruit from that extend into areas like Florida and TExas, where the recruiting grounds are much more plentiful.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Won't respond to all, save for a few points:

College football in the Northeast died to a great extent when the Ivies decided to deemphasis (no athletic scholarships) and the Doc Blanchards, Glenn Davis's, Joe Bellino's & Roger Staubachs of the world stopped attending Army & Navy. Sure Syracuse was strong back then, Pitt too, West Virginia, BCU (sort of) and rounding out the bunch was Penn State.

As for New England . . . . what did the Universities of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermon, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine have in common with such Universities as Tennessee, Nebraska, Washington, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, etc? Not much. At least not much when it came to big time sports. New England, in fact, was pretty much small time in football and even in hoops (save for the occasional Holy Cross & PC) to a great extent.

How one corner of the country could be so out of touch with the overall trend (in college sports) in this country is hard to comprehend. Except that they appeared to be trying to become the Junior Ivy League. Penn State did much to shift some semblance of respectability back to the Northeast.

As for UMass. . . they never competed equally (since the 50's anyway) for the same kids as Penn State. The Yankee Conference was closer to Trinity and Williams in those days than they ever were to Penn State. Please!

With respect to hoops, give Dave Gavitt all the credit in the world. The Big East Basketball Conference finally gave the northeast some belief that they could actually field big time programs. No more UConn being big Yankee Conference fish (small pond if there ever was) getting beat by St Joesph's in huge NCAA ocean - or pounded by 47 points by Duke. Problem was the conference couldn't see that football was driving the TV/College sports bus and could only see basketballs. How short sighted it was too not accept Penn State into the Big East. How many Big East schools have a 16K on-campus arena? Syracuse yes, UConn not even close.

You know what the difference was? The media, and it's role in definining "who was the best". It certainly wasn't the competition on the field, and who got to play in the bowl games and how that was determined at the time.

The same thing the big east as a football conference has faced in the current BCS / ESPN TV era. BAck then, it was the major sports writers in the big cities all over the country, that led the way.

Ever wonder why basketball people despise football so much? It's because of the media, and their role.

Basketball people, and me too, because of my exposure to it over the years, completely despise the fact that the team holding the national trophy at the end of each year is not determined equally on the field of play.

The big east, can help, change that aspect of college football for the better, that has been it's dark underbelly since the very beginning. The media.

 

[upstater]

The great failure of Joe paterno, from a football standpoint, is the failure to re-establish a football league in the northeast USA at the level of competition he had brought Penn State up to, after removing all of the other football programs save Syracuse and BC as recruiting competition. He tried, to re-establish a league, becuase I don't believe for a second that he wanted Penn State in a league with Iowas and Michigans, but because of Dave Gavitt's basketball league he failed.

That's it, that's all I'll write on this.

Promise.

BC and Cuse? Uh-huh. But not Pitt and WV?

PSU wanted to join a northeast conference, they just wanted to keep revenues.

In other words, they wanted the same exact offer that the BE gave to Miami.

 

[Carl Spackler]

What do you want me to say about Pitt and WVU that i havent already? Look, put yourself back 30-40 years if you can. Recruiting territories were a big frigging deal. Airplane travel for football teams and football players was not the norm. Look where Pitt and WVU recruit. Look where PSU recruited, and still recruits.

Pitt and WVU are not realistic land travel distances in a single day and get anything useful done from anywhere east of the hudson river or in the tri-state area.

The only reasons that BC and CUse remained,a nd why I mention them, is that after the 1-A, 1-AA split was becuase they had stadia that were of adequate size for the new divisions. Pitt and WVU did too as ND.

If BC and Cuse had smaller venues in 1979, with the 1-A, 1-AA split, Penn State would have been the only 1-A school aside from Yale, this side of State College and north of mason dixon.

Do you not understand that and how it affects recruiting for a 1-A program?

By failing to reestablish a 1-A conference after that, it opened up the entire northeast to recruiting by 1-A conferences around the country by 1990.

 

[HartfordHank]

Some may not believe me, you'll have to go check, but one of the biggest and powerful football programs in the northeast in the 1970s was not Penn STate. It was UMass. Yup, there was a time when Paterno had big problems in competition with recruiting - against - UMASS.
)

In the 70's UMass was 64-40-2 for a winning percentage of .613. They won six Yankee Conference titles. Two of those titles came with teams that went 4-4-1 and 5-6. During that period they went 8-2 against BC. One of the losses was in 1992 when UMass we 9-2 including a bowl game win in the Atlantic City Bowl. (That team included a kid named Berra who I believe posts here from time to time from the RU board) The other win over BC was 1978 when BC went 0-11.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Look, I proabbaly shouldn't have said the things about northesat football that I did, becuase proabably most of the readers and writers here were not even born by the time 1-A, 1-AA split.

Hell, PP graduated from Penn State, the year that college football first went to divisions 1, 2, and 3. based on numbers of football scholarships that could be awarded, and he's old.

This entire thing I've written is about recruiting. REcruiting battles. Joe Paterno was able to build a fantastic football program at Penn St and he maintained the longevity of it, by being instrumental in changes after the 1960s, through the 1970s, by completely removing the vast majority of recruiting competition in a series of moves, the brilliance of which, is unparalled. The way he did it, changed the landscape of intercollegiate athletics and youth athletics all over the most highly populated area of this country. FOr the better.

I am saying that the vast variety of youth athletic opportunities that exist for kids in the northeast, is directly related to the changes that occurred in college football in the 1970s.

You don't see kids with the programs and opportunities they've got here in the football countries down south, and out west. Thats a great thing to me. Athletics and kids go hand in hand, and every child growing up through sport and school, and finding sports they can excel at, is a great thing, that doesn't exist everywhere in this country.

Many football people would say that the diversity in youth programs in the northeast is detriment to college football programs, I don't think so. N0t at all.

Just tryin to learn some the youngsters some history. Some history that completely has been ignored in eveyrthign I've read about Joe Paterno since his passing.

Good day all, I've got some real work to do, this doesn't pay the bills. But it is fun for me.