| The resurgence of Notre Dame and Penn State, which collectively have a 5-0 record, stirred some people into sharing some old stories about that rivalry, which will resume in 2006.
Dave Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, recalled the soggy game played in 1985 at Beaver Stadium. Penn State won, 36-6, and it was the last time Gerry Faust visited as the Notre Dame coach.
When Faust invited Anderson to dinner, Faust said, "Let's go to the Pizza Hut," and they did. After the game, which was played in a driving rain, Dave went to his car in the parking lot that was now a soggy, rutted field and found it splattered with mud. He said it looked like a leopard.
"So I drove my leopard down I-80," Anderson said, "and the first thing I did Sunday was get the car washed."
Paul Smith, the Midwest correspondent for collegeBLITZ.com, recalled traveling from Michigan City, Ind., with Breyman Schmelzle, Notre Dame '69, who was working for The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.
"His rent a car seemed about halfway to Bellefonte and our pants looked like something the Allies wore on June 7, 1944. Amazingly pissy day," Smith said.
He added: "Also, Joe St. Onge had tickets for the game but ran into a blizzard on I-80 about halfway from Yonkers, N.Y. (someplace in the Poconos), and I'd set up a meeting point outside the press box elevator and we were going to go in together.
"I held out until the mid-late second quarter and figured he'd had something go very wrong, sat inside in maybe the most miserable weather conditions I've ever experienced. It was the first or second year of Penn State's no-umbrellas policy, and I'd never seen that before. So I spent a good chunk of time under the stands. Yeesh!
"Breyman and I must have dazzled 'em at 10 o'clock Mass at St. John's Church in Hollidaysburg, Pa., the next day. They must have thought we were two farmers coming off the pasture!" |
