SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1955 10 Coaches Pilot 11 Lion Three Lion Sports Open Fall Action When it comes to sports—as many of the upperclassmen already know and as the fresh men will soon learn—Penn State has proven itself an ac tive and successful competitor in the collegiate sporting ranks. In this issue—primarily for the freshmen—is a brief background of Penn State's past accomplish ments, the present news, and a look into the oncoming fall sports scene. And in this particular article is a brief rundown on the men who spend endless hours on the prac tice fields and in Recreation Hall planning, revising, and planning some more to knit successful Lion teams—the Coaches. Penn State has 11 varsity sports including football, soccer, and cross country in the fall, wrestling, basketball, and gymnastics in the winter, and golf, tennis, baseball, lacrosse, and outdoor track in the spring. Each sport has a head coach ex cept for cross country and outdoor track which are handled by Charles "Chick" Werner and his assistant, Norm Gordon. In addition to the 10 varsity coaches Charles "Chuck" Medlar, Ray Ulinski, and Eddie Sulkowski —former boxing coach at the Uni versity until the sport was dr',pped nearly two years ago— serve as trainers. Charles "Rip'! Engle handles football. The white-thatched foot- f 404 yr •;, -L Rip Engle Football Coach ball coach opens his sixth year with the Lions this fall and his tenth in the college coaching ranks. His five-year log at Penn State shows 23 wins, 12 defeats, and two ties. Penn State, Kentucky, and Ok lahoma are the only schools in the nation which have not had a los ing season 'in the nine postwar years. Engle has been handling the job since 1950 with the Lions after he finished a five-year stay at Brown University. Engle, the first non-alumnus to assume command at Penn State since the retirement of the late Hugo Bezdek who was followed by alumni Bob Higgins and Joe Bedenk, guided Brown to its best record since 1932 with a 7-2 card in 1948. In 1949 he owned an 8-1 slate when he was named Rhode Island's Coach of the Year. After serving as an assistant in Complete Stock of GREETING CARDS for every occasion NITTANY CARD & GIFT SHOP 342 E. College Ave. Opp. Atherton Hall Ken Hosterrnan Starting Third Season the annual Blue-Gray game at Montgomery, Ala., in '49 and '5O Engle returned in 1951 as head coach, a position he still fills each year. During the summer, Engle went abroad at the invitation of the Far East Command to conduct football clinics in Japan and Ha waii for four weeks. If any one of the ten sketches on Penn State's coaching staff could be called a "cinderella" tale, that of Ken Hosterman, soccer coach, would certainly be it. The 30-year-old Hosterman last year—while coaching the Lions for only his second year—came up with the nation's number one team. In his two years at the helm of Penn State soccer Hosterman's teams have compiled a 15-2 rec ord including an eight-game string last fall that earned the Lions the title. When Bill Jeffrey, the Lions fabulous coach until 1953 when he resigned to take a teaching-coach ing position at the University of Puerto Rico, was followed by Hos terman it was generally felt he was "too young and wholly with out experience." After one of the Lion victories last fall, a prominent Eastern of ficial said, "Hosterman produced one of the finest teams I have ever seen in college ranks. It had pow er, pois e, and precision and it played the game the way it should be played." Hosterman, who comes from a family of Penn State soccer play ers—two of his brothers won all- America honors under Jeffrey— narrowly missed a perfect record in his first season in 1953 when Army and then Temple eked out close wins. Two of Hosterman's players— high scoring Dick Packer who re turns this year as captain and for mer captain Jack Pinezich—won all-America ranking.while Paul Dierks, fullback, won second team recognition last year. Three games have been booked for the 1955 Penn State freshman football team. The Lion cubs will play Navy October 8; Pitt, Octo ber 22; and Bullis Acad e m y, November 5. Only the Pitt game will be played at home. Slate College - Lewistown Boalsburg Auto Bus Line Effective 2:01 a.m. April 24. 1955 Eastern Standard Time Daily Daily Fri. & Sun. Only Lv. State College 10:45 a.m. 3:50 p.m. 6:10 p.m. Ar. Lewistown 11:45 a.m. 4:50 p.m. 7:10 p.m. Lv. Lewistown 11:55 a.m. 5:55 p.m. 10:15 p.m. Ar. State College 12:55 p.m. 6:55 p.m. 11:15 p.m. Make Direct Connections with East-Bound Trains 12:22 p.m. daily 5:31 p.m. daily Fri. and Sun. 7:28 p.m. Make Direct Connections with West-Bound Trains 11:50 a.m. daily 5:30 p.m. daily Fri. and Sun. 10:12 p.m. Ride the ... Boalsburg Auto Bus Line, Inc. to Lewistown and save hours of time to Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington Chartered trips can be arranged Ticket Office, State College Hotel, Phone AD 8-6733 Company Office 642 E. College Ave. Telephone AD 8-6769 Boalsburg HO 6-6712 THE 15Alt - i -%-vu . tGlArg, 'STATE COLLEGE, PENNSYLVANIA Winter Sports Present Strong Teams Yearly The three winter sports are an nually among the strongest ath letic squads presented by Penn State. The reason for this -cap be traced back to the fact that each is piloted by crafty veteran coach es, who constantly lead their team into national tournaments. Wrestling coach Charlie Speidel is no exception to this. Speidel, starting his 30th year at the helm of the Lion grapplers, leads a strong mat aggregation to the Eastern and national tournaments each year. In his 29 years of mat coaching at Penn State, Speidel has notched a record of 151 wins, 41 losses and eight ties. This record includes a 34-match winning streak which extended over four seasons, the Eastern wrestling championship six times, and the national title ponce, that in 1952. All of Speidel's actions have not been restricted to coaching wrest ling, however. The mat mentor was once an amateur boxer but, changed to the mat without much Aftr - stint the Speidel turned coach, and has been manufacturing winners ever since. Speidel now claims the title of being the coach with the most number of years at Penn State. The 57-year-old pilot has 29 be hind him and has four more years before a voluntary retirement pro viso confronts him. While Speidel claims the long est coaching mark, basketball coach John Egli is the newest Penn State sport head. Although with only one year behind him at the head of Penn State hard court aggregation, Egli is no stranger to the coaching business, especially in the Nittany Vale. He was basketball coach at the D u B ois Undergraduate Center from 1947 until 1950, when he was appointed Lion freshman coach. He served in that capacity until Elmer Gross' retirement last year (Continued on page seventeen) Joe Bedenk 25 Years on Diamond Complete Nittany Records Compiled Sports fans will have a hip pocket aid from now on to help settle any arguments that might come up over Penn State's rec ords and performances during the past years in athletic competition. And you can get it all for a buck. Penn State's sports public information department, headed by James Coogan, says the 104- page sports book will be available in Recreation Hall near the end of September. Only a limited supply however, will be published so if you want to have a copy see Edward Czekaj, assistant business manager of ath letics, in Rec Hall. The book will be primarily a statistical guide including refer ences to national and eastern team and individual performances. The survey will cover 13 sports. Sports Dope . . . =El= For the first time in five years, Penn State's 1955 baseball team did not lose a single game to the weather. 60,000 Grid Fans Football ticket application blanks have been mailed to a rec ord-smashing 60,000 alumni by Penn State athletic officials. Main Event Navy will be the attraction for Penn State's Homecoming football game on October 15, 1955. New Role Steve Suhey, former Penn State all-America, has given up high school football coaching in favor of salesmanship. Au&tp ot i Serving Fine Food At All Hours Don C. Meyer Class of '5O Welcomes Freshmen and all new students to Penn State ROUTE 322 STATE COLLEGE 8-6333 PAGE FIFTEEN Sports 5 Coaches Lead Spring Athletics In the Spring when most young peoples' thoughts turn to a variety of pleasant things, the thoughts of the four spring athletic coaches turn to one thing—the way in which they can produce a win ning team. These four mentors—baseball coach Joe Bedenk, golf coach Bob Rutherford, tennis coach Sherman Fogg, and lacrosse coach Nick Thiel—annually round out the Penn State sport scene with strong aggregations. In the case of Bob Rutherford, his teams have been in the "par excellence" category for the past two seasons. The Lion linksmen have not been defeated in either of the past two campaigns, and will be after their 13th consecu tive victory in their opening match next spring. Rutherford took the reigns of the Nittany golfers from his father in 1949, after serving as his as sistant for 20 years. Joe Bedenk, who will start his 26th season at the helm of the Penn State baseball team, is an other mentor who moulded a superior squad last spring. After an average start, the Lion nine caught fire to win a berth in the District 2 playoffs of the NCAA championships. His over all record as baseball coach at Penn State shows 284 victories against only 122 losses and 2 ties. His coaching talents were not limited to the diamond, however, as in 1949 he took over the Lion gridiron aggregation for two years and posted a mark of 10 wins, seven setbacks, and one tie. For the first time in several years, lacrosse coach Nick Thiel can look back on a successful Icampaign and hope to better last year's mark which showed the Lions finishing over the .500 line. This is quite an accomplishment as lacrosse has the undesired uniqueness of being the only Penn State sport not having an overall record over the .500 mark. In starting his 21st season, Thiel can again hope for the season to finish on the blue side of the ledger, as the squad will be sprinkled with returning veterans. Tennis coach Sherm Fogg can also spend a happy winter as he looks forward to a court aggrega tion with experience and a drop of depth. The netters lost only two performers from last year's team which showed a 7-5 record. It was a comedown from 1954 when Fogg piloted the netmen to a 9 and 2 log, but it provided much needed experience to sopho mores and juniors. Penn State's cross country team (Continued on page sixteen)
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