I took several days before deciding to waste some time on this. There was the Pitt-Penn State Golf Challenge. Joe Starkey decided he’d be the one to write the article on renewing the football rivalry (and hey, what about the fact that PSU has now wussed out on the basketball part as well?).
The topic has been beaten beyond recognition, but doesn’t deserve to die. There is no good reason why such a historic, natural rivalry shouldn’t be revived. It’s maddening to look at the teams’ non-conference schedules and see The Citadel, Youngstown State, Akron, Toledo, Central Florida and Temple, but not each other.
[Subtext reader] Not to mention that it’s June. Steeler minicamp is over. Nothing to say about the Penguins at this point. There are only so many ways to say that the Pirates suck. So, by God, I need to fill a column and this will do. [/end subtext reader]
“I’d love to see it come back,” former Penn State linebacker Mike Zordich said. “If you ask a lot of guys here, they’d say the same.”
At this point, it’s useless to assign blame, though most of it clearly rests with Penn State coach Joe Paterno, who never got over the fact that Pitt joined the Big East basketball conference in 1982 instead of joining him in an all-sports Eastern conference.
Pitt hasn’t avoided pettiness, either, packaging tickets to the 2000 game at Three Rivers Stadium with a Temple game and thus jacking up the price for Penn State fans.
None of that matters now. What matters is finding a solution. Here’s an easy one: The state legislature should force the schools to play each other.
“The legislature could do that, seeing as both schools enjoy getting money from the state,” said Walt Bielich, who played offensive line at Pitt half a century ago and now is the executive director of the Pitt Varsity Letter Club.
“I think the state should get involved,” Zordich said.
Johnny Majors cites the fact that Iowa had a similar issue with Iowa and Iowa State. Other state government involvement has included Alabama (Alabama-Auburn), Florida (Florida-FSU), and most recently the WV Governor stepped in to broker a deal with WVU and Marshall. So there are precedents.
The approach would be similar to the way that the federal government compels states to control speed limits, legal drinking ages and what level you are driving drunk. Tie money to following certain restrictions. The states don’t have to do what the federal government wants, but then they don’t get that pork federal transportation funds for all the other goodies.
Since both Pitt and PSU are state schools and receive state funding, they could easily tie all or a portion to resuming the annual game. There have been attempts and far more talk of such in the past, but the legislature has never acted on this. You can believe PSU would capitulate (and whine a lot) really fast if that happened. The fact that a Paterno couldn’t win an election to the legislature could be considered a good sign.
There would be plenty of editorials and freaks who don’t like sports to decry this as valuing football and sports over education and sending a bad message to the children. Because, it is always for the children when an argument is struggling (see also, drug war).
Unfortunately, I don’t see it happening. Not enough will in the legislature to do it.
