Sept. 26, 2012
By Kelsey Detweiler, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Thirty years ago, they were the first group of young men to be recognized for a national title in Penn State Football history.
This past Saturday, more than 50 members of the 1982 Nittany Lion team gathered to celebrate that anniversary in and around the confinements of Beaver Stadium.
First, the lettermen gathered before the start of his team's game against Temple inside a large white tent outside of the Bryce Jordan Center. Then the veterans made their way onto the field at the end of the halftime show to be cheered on by the Nittany Lion faithful.
For many of these men, the roaring fans and daylong tailgating festivities brought back memories of their own time as collegiate athletes. And all of them agreed, whether it was their 20th trip back to campus or their first visit since graduating, that they still felt just as much a part of the `family' as before.
"I tell people that my best friends are still my teammates at Penn State," said Pete Speros, who was one of the four captains that led the championship team. "It's probably the most important accomplishment that I've had in my life so far just being one of the leaders of that team and those guys."
Speros and his teammates said that they remember overcoming the obstacle of being tagged as the underdogs, and did what not many people expected them to do.
He and the '82 Nittany Lions defeated top-ranked Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, La., by a score of 27-23 in a `winner-take-all' atmosphere. But Speros said that his fondest memory of that season came after it was all over.
"People were lined up from Harrisburg all the way to State College outside at 11 and 12:00 at night in the freezing cold and I'll never forget that," Speros said of the night he and his teammates traveled back to State College from their final game. "That's a memory that sticks with me forever."
Losers to only Alabama that season, a few veteran Lions said they could taste a championship game the closer and closer it got. But each one agreed that getting there was no cakewalk.
"I don't think we realized what was happening," said former linebacker Carmen Masciantonio. "In looking back, all of the things that we went through, the good times and the bad times and the injuries and the disappointments, all of those really did help. The fact that we could come back and still compete and be successful was really special."
Masciantonio couldn't point out one particular moment during the season or on his trip to the championship matchup, but he said he would never forget what it felt like to roll up to Beaver Stadium in those old, blue buses.
"You can't really try to communicate what that feels like," said Masciantonio. "The tingles that it gives you and even just the smaller things too."
Many Nittany Lion fans would agree that `tingles' are what they felt watching the Sugar Bowl that year. Quarterback Todd Blackledge threw for 228 yards with one touchdown and tailback Curt Warner out-ran Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker with 117 yards on 18 carries to claim the program's first national title.
Even center Mark Battaglia still gets excited.
"I've got hairs on my arms sticking up right now just thinking about it," said Battaglia. "It doesn't go away. It is a powerful, powerful experience for any young man to go through and it never goes away."
Warner was in attendance for the reunion as well, but he came not only as an honored letterman but also as a proud father. The College Football Hall of Famer's son, Jonathan, is a freshman under head coach Bill O'Brien this season. Warner said that after what he experienced in his time at Penn State, he wouldn't want his son to be anywhere else.
"In life, you really go through a number of challenges and I think from an athletic perspective, when you deal with challenges on a regular basis you tend to be able to accept those challenges a little bit more because you know the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, those are true statements," said Warner. "In life, it's the same way."
The All-American tailback remembers his senior season as one that makes up some of his happiest memories, but also one that taught him some of his most practiced life lessons.
"Football is a game where it's not about the individual, it's about the team," said Warner. "Coach [Joe Paterno] would always say, `You never stay the same you only get better or worse,' and that's kind of how it goes. It comes down to how you handle the adversity."
For many of the 1982 lettermen the reunion was just one more chance to invite their immediate family-members to meet a family they may or may not have known very well already: Their Penn State family.
Most of the veterans were dressed in head to toe in navy blue and white jackets, t-shirts and sweatshirts, and some of them even wore their shiny blue and silver championship rings. But no matter how well the rest of the world remembers their names or knows what they did, several of the lettermen said that that year would be a special one that they will never let go.
"You go through things and you meet a lot of friends and people who stick with you," said Masciantonio. "The things that you learn and you don't realize that you're learning them, they stick with you. That's what 1982 did to all of us."