Penn State, Paterno, and Pitt: How Did They Miss on So Many Pennsylvania QB's?

(Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

Its 1943 and the Soviets are surrounding the beleaguered German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. US Marines are locked in bloody combat with Japanese Imperial troops on Guadalcanal and Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno is tired.

Traveling, recruiting, old coach type of tired. The kind of traveling tired that's worse then old dog tired.

Old Joe has put many miles on his 1932 Ford Roadster trying to land his man but he just can't get Johnny Lujack, the great high school passer from Western Pennsylvania, to change his mind.

Can't Johnny just say no to Notre Dame and come play for Paterno at Penn State? After all Joe just took Johnny to see that new hot Hollywood picture called Casablanca and the kid really liked it.

Old Joe even patted the boy on the back as they left the theater and did his best Brooklyn Bogart growling.

Johnny, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

But it wasn't to be. Johnny went to Notre Dame and in the decades to come other great quarterbacks left just like Lujack. 

Its a list that one can see at the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Joe Namath, George Blanda, and Jim Kelly.

Only the Pennsylvania high school all-century team has johnny Unitas as a backup and hall of famers Namath, Kelly, and Blanda on the bench with mere honorable mentions.

Other quality NFL players also fled the state including Jeff Hosteteler, Rich Gannon, Steve Bono, and Don Strock also struck camp and left the Keystone State.

The only Hall of famer to stay in state was Pitt's Dan Marino. Perhaps Paterno's best pair of quarterbacks, Kerry Collins and Chuck Fusina, were both Pennsylvania products.

But why did so many leave during Pennslyvania's football's golden years?

The years when the Pennsylvania steel factories and coal mines were booming was the prime time for Pennsylvania players. Today, with an aging population and young folks fleeing the economically depressed state in droves, the football pickings have become a bit slimmer.

But imagine Namath or Montana playing for Paterno?

How did Paterno, Penn State and the Pitt Panthers, miss on so many?

The lure of the Golden Dome was harder to resist then. Notre Dame grabbed Johnny Lujack and he won the Heisman. The Golden Domers gobbled up Joe Montana and, despite being misused by coach Dan Devine, gave the Irish a title during his tenure.

Joe Namath was lured south by a bear trap. A Bear Bryant trap that is. The Old Bear wanted a strong-armed QB to stretch the SEC. It was time to win with defense and the deep ball, so the Bear sent assistant Howard Schellenberger north to bring Namath south.

It's said Bear told his faithful assistant if you don't bring that boy back with you, well, you best keep on driving right to your next job. So Schnellenberger picked up Namath and Pennsylvania and drove south.

Slowly. And he kept a close eye on his recruit so he would not talk on the phone or in person to any other coaches or recruiters.

The wrath of the Bear was a fearsome thing, they say. A bourbon-soaked hurricane wind blown up from the hard-scrabble Depression0era fields of Moro Bottom Arkansas, but this time the hurricane could blow out to sea, for his man Schnellenberger brought him his Pennsylvania QB.

Namath left the north and headed south and never came back, except for a brief but famous Broadway run.

But what about the others?

Unitas was passed over by the Irish, ignored by Penn State, and fail to get into Pitt, so when Louisville offered, Johnny U jumped.

Blanda, a coal miner's boy, also went to the Bluegrass State and ended up playing for Bear Bryant. The young Bear, before Texas A'm and way before Bama, awed the young Blanda, who thought of Bryant, "This is what God must look like."

Quite an impression, and Blanda had two impressive seasons under Bryant.

Joe Paterno saw Jim Kelly's shoulders and thought he make a helluva linebacker. Kelly saw Miami and thought of sunny days, center snaps, and string bikinis, so the young man went south.

All the way to South Beach. Then on to Buffalo and Canton.

But don't blame Joe over much. Not everyone hits homers every time at bat and the old man has had his share of moon shots.

Still, imagine the Nittany Lions with some of these superstar names. Imagine a deep strike offense to go with all those great defenses and running backs.

If Penn State, and Pitt save Marino, has lacked one thing over the decades, it's consistent superior quarterbacking.

As a position that's priceless and with all the gold laying around their home states, one would think Penn State and Pitt would have made more big strikes instead of striking out so often.

But it was hard to compete with the Golden Dome, especially during its glory days of yore.

And it was hard to beat the Bear, on the field or in recruiting.

But if one would like to hear old Joe snap and growl one more time, ask the old boy how come Bear Bryant coached more NFL Hall of Fame Pennsylvania quarterbacks then he did.

Or perhaps not. For the press be not a favorite of Old Joe anymore, even though he used to share his stories and bourbon with them on Friday nights many moons ago.

Times change.

And as for the Johhny Lujack and Joe Casablanca tale? 

Joe's old, but he's not that old.

Is he?

Don't believe everything you read.

Or hear.

But when Rick, Llsa, Captain Renault, and Sam were sipping drinks in the sand and Johnny Lujack was lighting up the football fields, well old Joe was just sweet 16 then.

Time sure does go by.

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