Little changed mind about Paterno

Margaret Bigham, left, and Jake Bigham, from near Charleston, S.C., pause ion remembrance around a statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

By Mike London

mlondon@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — It was the fall of 1959, and there were 4,000 students attending perennial Pennsylvania football powerhouse Altoona Area High School.

The top half-dozen athletic prodigies in that school were summoned for a preseason meeting with a bespectacled, 32-year-old assistant coach, who had made the 40-mile drive over from Penn State.

Salisbury resident Charlie Little was one of those six chosen phenoms, and the assistant coach sitting across the table from him was a slick-haired, stern-looking Joe Paterno.

“Joe was the quarterbacks coach at Penn State,” Little said. “Altoona was one of the schools he recruited. Altoona produced a lot of players.”

Among the Altoona Mountain Lions called to that meeting were two sensational scholars ranked among the top 10 students in the 1,000-member Class of 1960. One of them, Tom Kerns, would play defensive tackle for Army.

Also in the room was Jim Curry, 6-foot-5 and Little’s only black teammate. A tremendous basketball player, Curry would be persuaded by Oscar Robertson himself to go to Cincinnati, where he would play quarterback for the Bearcats.

Curry had fine academic credentials, as did Bob Gutshall, a Parade All-America running back, who would go on to play at Pitt.

“Paterno is sitting there with all our academic records in front of him,” Little said. “He didn’t look at all like a football coach with that hair and that beak nose and those glasses that had to be an inch thick. What he looked like was someone from New York City. He looked like a nerd.”

Paterno had been born in Brooklyn and had played quarterback at Brown, but his goal of becoming a lawyer had been overruled by his passion for the gridiron. He’d joined the Penn State staff in 1950.

It was quite an assembly of prep talent seated in front of Paterno. He offered grim nods of approval to four of the Mountain Lions, but he offered frowns and harsh words for the perceived classroom shortcomings of powerful linemen Little and Louis Glashauser.

“The first thing he said to Louis and me was, ‘What have you boys been doing?’ ” Little recalled. “That surprised me a little bit because I was a decent student. I was taking the college prep courses and I’d made 950 on the PSAT. It’s not like I made 300. I said, ‘Coach, I’m in the top 20 percent of my class. There’s 800 people with grades below me.’ ”

Paterno wasn’t impressed.

As it turned out, Paterno didn’t successfully recruit any of those six stalwarts — and he’d made two enemies.

“When we left that room, I remember Louis said, ‘I wouldn’t go to Penn State now if they gave it to me,’ ” Little said. “And I didn’t like Paterno very much, either.”

Life moves on. Kids grow up.

Glashauser was a letter-winning guard at Purdue, earned a degree and coached football in Altoona for 33 years. He died in 2007.

Little originally signed with Arizona State, but fate brought him south to Catawba, where he became a Hall of Fame lineman and the defensive coordinator for Pete Stout’s prep dynasties at Salisbury and Burlington Williams.

For years, Little didn’t have much use for Penn State, although his brother, Jerry, three years older, always held a spot close to his heart for the Nittany Lions, who rose to serious prominence after Paterno was named head coach in 1966 — at $20,000 per year — and claimed a pair of national championships in the 1980s.

“Whenever Penn State would play anyone in the South I’d always bet $50 against them,” Little said with a chuckle. “And I was pretty glad when N.C. State beat them.”

But the day came when Jerry Little was stricken by Multiple Sclerosis.

In the 1990s, he was confined to a rest home in Altoona, his life slowly ebbing away, and the only thing Charlie could think of to help was to write a letter to Paterno, the coaching icon.

“I wrote to him, told him I’d met him once when I played at Altoona for coach Earl Strohm, and I tried to explain how much my brother loved Penn State,” Little said. “I told him Jerry was dying and asked if maybe he could go by and see him. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but two days later, I get a phone call. And the lady says, “Hold please for Coach Joe Paterno.’ ”

Paterno said his schedule wouldn’t permit a visit, but he’d be glad to call Jerry.

“He asked us to let the rest home know that Joe Paterno would be calling, so they wouldn’t think it was a crank call,” Little said. “And he did call him. They talked Penn State football for 15 minutes. Let’s just say my estimation of Joe Paterno went up quite a bit.”

A lot of years have passed, but Little can still picture his brother’s face lighting up when that call from the Hall of Famer came, and he’s been grateful to Paterno ever since.

The recent Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State saddened Little, who is certain the cause of Paterno’s death on Sunday was simply a broken heart, not the officially reported “complications from lung cancer.”

“Sandusky was with Joe for 32 years, there was loyalty there, and out of that loyalty, Joe, deep down, didn’t want to believe the things that happened,” Little said. “I know a lot of guys (including Altoona All-Pros Mike Reid and Ed Flanagan) who played for Joe at Penn State, and they all admire him. I believe that Joe was a good person.”