We are Penn State

In 1948, Penn State football played well enough to be selected to play in the Cotton Bowl against Southern Methodist University. During this time, the Cotton Bowl was a segregated game and Penn State had Wally Triplett, the first African American to earn a varsity letter at Penn State. When both schools scheduled meetings to make the decision to remove African American players from the team to play in the bowl game, team captain Steve Suhey shared his opposition of the meetings with the statement “We are Penn State. There will be no meetings.” Triplett was able to play and ended up scoring the game-tying touchdown.

01/01/1948

1948