Reunited and it Feels So Good
by Bob Volkert, Sports Information Assistant
Former Penn State men??s soccer great Dick Packer can??t wait for the weekend of Sept. 16-18.
Not only will he be in Happy Valley for a rare trip back to his alma mater, but he will also be reunited with some of his greatest friends and have the chance to relive some of his most precious memories. Packer, a two-time All-America selection while playing at Penn State from 1953-55, is spearheading a 50-year reunion along with head coach Barry Gorman that will reunite the 1954 and 1955 Penn State men??s soccer national championship teams.
??We did it for the 40th anniversary, and it was successful,?? said Packer, who works for Maritz McGettigan in Rowayton, Conn. ??Everybody wanted to do it again, so it??s something that everybody wanted. Somebody had to take the bull by the horns and round everybody up and make it happen. So Coach Gorman and I are doing it, and this is my kind of business. I understand what needs to be done. I??m in the event-planning business. It??s fun and enjoyable for me.??
Maritz McGettigan is a division of a larger company that specializes in handling corporate reward trips. Packer has been working with the company since 1959.
Prior to his days with Maritz McGettigan, Packer was a key, if not the key, to the 1954-55 Penn State national championship teams which went a combined 17-0-0 and outscored their opponents by a remarkable 91-22 margin.
He set record after record on his way to being named an All-America first team selection both seasons, as well as the Bill Jeffrey Award winner as the team??s most valuable player in 1955. Some of his records still stand today ?C 24 goals and 50 points in 1955 in just nine games, for example ?C and may never be broken.
Jim Stamatis has been the closest since Bill Fiedler (21) in 1957 to come to 24 goals when he put 20 in the net in 1977. But it took him 16 games. Stamatis?? 45 points that same season are also the closest any Penn State player has come to 50 points. Packer??s career goals mark stood for almost 40 years before Stuart Reid scored 56 during his career from 1992-95. Packer needed just 24 games over three seasons to score 53 goals (freshmen weren??t eligible to play back then). Reid played 24 games his freshmen season (scoring 14 goals), and he played another 66 games after that.
??You can??t score unless you have good forwards, halfbacks and fullbacks,?? Packer said. ??I owe those goals to 10 other people on the field. Those aren??t my records, they are our records. Sure I was up front, and I??m supposed to shoot and score. It takes a lot of work in front of the goal to score. So it??s nice to have records, but I don??t feel they are entirely mine.?? Packer doesn??t recall it, but old newspaper clippings claim that he once scored all nine goals in a 9-1 victory during an exhibition match against Sampson Air Force Base. He scored five goals in a game two times.
??Penn State just had players with better skill than everyone else, and I think that was the big thing,?? Packer said. ??(Former Penn State coach) Bill Jeffrey recruited so many good players in the Philadelphia and New York area. We could move the ball around better than other teams. That??s why we scored so much. We had better skills, and we were better trained than other teams. Although, Army and Navy were so tough because they were so well conditioned. They??d run for 90 minutes. If you didn??t score early, they might get a couple goals in the final minutes because of their stamina.?? Among one of Packer??s most cherished moments is the fact that he made the 1956 Olympics for Team USA. He was one of five current (at the time) or former Nittany Lions to receive a tryout. He and Ron Coder, who played at Penn State from 1949-50, both made the team. Packer was the only college athlete to make the team.
While a powerful Yugoslavian team defeated Team USA in the first round of the Olympics, Packer and the team had a very successful tour through Southeast Asia prior to the Summer Olympics, which were held in Melbourne, Australia. ??It was the biggest thrill of my life to learn that I made the team,?? Packer said. ??I played in the last tryout in St. Louis on Sunday afternoon. I flew to Newark and then went into the Newark train station to catch a train to State College. I picked up a newspaper in the train station at around midnight, and it had the 16 members of the team that made it. That was a real thrill.??
As a former Olympian, he even got to carry the Olympic Torch prior to the 1996 Atlanta games. He carried the torch through the community he lives in ?C from Westport to Norwalk in Connecticut.
??That was very emotional to run down the street with kids lining both sides of the street,?? Packer said. ??Running down that street was highly emotional, probably the most emotional experience I??ve ever had. Entering Olympic Stadium in Melbourne was another big thrill with 120,000 people in the stands. It??s one of the things you dream about as a kid, and all of a sudden you are right in the middle of it.??
While on the trip to Southeast Asia, Team USA went a combined 5-3 against very good competition. One of the games was a 1-0 loss against South Korea in Seoul, with a very hostile crowd watching.
??That was some game,?? Packer said. ??It??s a sad thing to say, but we were very glad to have lost that game. Communism was very predominant in those days, especially in Korea. The whole stadium was red, and the crowd got very nasty towards us, throwing things on the field. Had we won, there probably would have been a scuffle. Police were surrounding the field. It could have been a mess had we won.??
During the weekend of Sept. 16-18 at Jeffrey Field, Packer will be reunited with many of the friends he made at Penn State, and leading up to the Olympics. He is very eager to bond with them once again.
??I??m looking forward to seeing all of the guys and seeing what they look like,?? Packer said. ??We??ll talk about the college days, and the games we played. I??m looking forward to learning about them and their families. Seeing them is going to be wonderful. They are terrific people. Barry Gorman has been doing a lot to make it successful for us. (Penn State Athletic Director) Tim Curley has also done a lot, and we appreciate that very much because it is out of the ordinary to do it. But it means so much to the 25 of us and our families.??