Penn State Nittany Lions to honor Wally Triplett, 1948 Cotton Bowl team with helmet decal Saturday
Penn State will honor Wally Triplett and the 1948 team that desegregated the Cotton Bowl by wearing a special decal on its helmet Saturday in the 84th edition of the prestigious bowl.
The white circular decal with blue lettering will feature “We Are” and “1948” at the top and bottom, with large letters “WT” in the middle — for Wally Triplett, one of two African Americans to play in the bowl. Dennie Hoggard was the other.
Penn State coach James Franklin alluded to the decal Friday morning from the Omni Dallas Hotel, about 20 miles from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. But the announcement and specifics didn’t formally come until the afternoon.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to obviously make sure our focus is on the Cotton Bowl and the great opponent that we have in Memphis,” Franklin said, “but also to be able to take some time and talk about history, history of our game of football, history of our specific universities, history of the Cotton Bowl, and more importantly history of our country and how far we’ve come in a short period of time.”
Triplett and his Penn State teams unmistakably contributed to the progress of civil rights in this country. In 1946, when a segregated Miami (Fla.) told the Nittany Lions to leave Triplett and Hoggard at home, the team unanimously voted that it was everyone or no one. Eight years before public schools were desegregated, the game was canceled.
The next year, with the country well-aware the Nittany Lions wouldn’t play without their African American teammates, the Cotton Bowl relented. With the approval of SMU, Penn State was invited to the bowl — and was forced to stay in an Air Naval Training Base because the team hotel wouldn’t allow Triplett and Hoggard to stay there.
The country was still 16 years away from passing the Civil Rights Act, seven years away from Rosa Parks refusing to move on that Alabama bus, and Penn State was poised to play in the first interracial Cotton Bowl in Texas. The game on Jan. 1, 1948, ended in a 13-13 tie.
“It was just some great history to talk to our players about,” Franklin said Friday, alluding to the Naval base story.
Hoggard died in 1985. Triplett passed away last year but spoke to Franklin and the Nittany Lions in 2015. Franklin said back then he found Triplett’s discussion moving, and he has said since finding out about the Cotton Bowl berth that he wanted to honor that history in some way.
Triplett was especially a trailblazer. He was Penn State’s first African American starter. He was one of the first African Americans to be drafted — and play — in the NFL. And he left an indelible mark in Happy Valley.
And on Saturday, nearly 72 years after Triplett first played in that Cotton Bowl, the Nittany Lions will be playing Memphis and honoring him.
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 2:01 PM.
