Word: shaffers
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...actually nicknamed Joe Pa. His Nittany Lions, who won the national championship in 1982, have long been counted among the purest football players in the land. In the plainest uniforms, down to the bare calves and black shoes, they even dress the part. Quoting a predecessor, Junior Quarterback John Shaffer recalls, "Chuck Fusina once said that if Coach Paterno could get away with it, he'd remove the numbers from the jerseys." Before marching unbeaten into Miami's Orange Bowl last week, the players of the No. 1 team in the nation voted to eschew the traditional orange ornament...
...heroic work just to keep the Sooners kicking field goals. Resolutely, Oklahoma ground out an unlovely victory, 25-10. The Nittany Lions had, after all, won a clutch of 2-point games this season, and as their suspected fallibility was plainly confirmed, the most exposed party was the quarterback Shaffer...
Paterno had warned, "John's not a beauty to watch," but the coach understated it. How Shaffer could have started 54 straight victories became the question of the moment, but an answer was suggested following the game by the brave way he stood up to his first loss since seventh grade. Of three interceptions, one at the goal line, Shaffer said straightforwardly, "The pattern was good, the protection was good, the throw was short. They were all bad throws. They killed us. It's just too bad that the performance of one person can have so much to do with...
Though Switzer must have out-coached Joe Pa, if only in the area of sideline composure, Oklahoma's good-times coach was as graceful and considerate later as Shaffer. "In the '50s, coaches may have made the difference," he said, "but you don't outcoach anymore. Players win now." With a sigh not a bellow, Switzer proclaimed, "We survived Bowl Day. That gives us the national championship." As for next year, he advised pretenders, "You've got to be good, got to be lucky and got to have other people help you." Oklahoma's aid came from New Orleans, where...
Died. Jose Melis, 85, Havana-born bandleader for The Tonight Show whose affectionate bantering with host Jack Paar, an old Army buddy, set the model for Doc Severinsen, Paul Shaffer and other late-night musician sidekicks who followed; in Sun City, Ariz...