Stan Hochman: Golden moment in Quaker football: Penn's 1959 Ivy League championship

THE FIRST time Penn won the Ivy League football championship, they fired the coach, Steve Sebo, before they swept up the last batch of red and blue confetti.

"We beat Cornell on Thanksgiving Day," George Koval recalled "and I headed home, upstate. I was walking out the door when I heard a guy on television say, 'The Penn coach has been fired.'

I said, 'Oh, my goodness.'

"We came back to the campus and a bunch of us gathered to protest. We went down Logan Walk to the president's office, Gaylord Harnwell. He was a nuclear physicist. And after we talked to him, we looked at each other, and shrugged, 'What did he just say?' "

Fifty years later, Koval still isn't sure how the administration justified firing a coach after he'd won a championship. Conventional wisdom says the Penn brass told Sebo before that 1959 season he was finished, win, lose or draw like DaVinci.

Sebo stayed, won the championship, got a standing ovation at the banquet. Tickets cost $8.50, which tells you all you need to know about how times have changed. "Ben-Hur" was the biggest movie that year. Bobby Darin warbled "Mack the Knife." The Daily News cost a nickel.

A brief pause for some history. In 1953, Penn was filling Franklin Field playing powerhouses like Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Army, Navy and Notre Dame. By 1959, adhering to Ivy League standards, no spring practice, no scholarships, no phys-ed majors and only Navy still on the nonleague schedule.

Shazam, that '59 Penn team tied Navy, 22-22. Not without controversy. The Quakers faced a fourth-and-4 at the Navy 6 and opted for the game-tying field goal, rather than gamble on a game-winning touchdown.

"Momentum had shifted," is the way Barney Berlinger Jr. recalled the circumstances. "We were hanging on by our fingernails."

"We didn't want to lose," Joe Doyle said.

So Koval trotted out there to hold for kicker Ed Shaw. "To this day he tells people I looked up at him," Koval said, chuckling, "and told him, 'You better not miss.' "

The next week, Penn was blanked by Harvard. The inevitable letdown? "I can't remember," Koval said with a sigh. "I can't remember anything about that game. I went back to pass, got hit. Went back to the huddle, called a play, went up to the line of scrimmage, and that was it. I had a concussion."

The medical staff told him to check into the hospital for testing. He wandered, instead, into Student Health and was kept overnight at the university hospital, while a frantic search ensued.

"By the end of the weekend," Koval said, "they released me, cleared me to play the next week. I went back to practice, had no problems, played the next week.

"I was lucky. I didn't get hit hard the rest of the season. I've had no problems, although there are probably some people who would argue with that."

It all came down to the Cornell game and an incredible second-half comeback, with Koval throwing three touchdown passes. The play he remembers best is the final touchdown, scored by Johnny Terpak.

"They punted, we got the ball back at their 10," Koval said. "I wanted Terpak to score. He was an unsung hero on that team. I handed him the ball and he got stopped. Came back to the huddle, dejected.

"I said, 'Don't worry, you've got three more shots at it.' Next play, he scored. He hadn't played that much, behind the Doellings and the Schantzes and the Hanlons."

When it was over, Dr. Farrell, the team physician, came by, tears in his eyes. "His nickname was Harpoon Harry for the novocaine needles he used," Koval remembered. "He was emotionally touched by the win. He handed me an envelope with 20 dollars in it. Told me to take my girlfriend to dinner."

They still get together every 5 years to retell the stories. This year, teammates came from California, Oregon, Texas, Colorado, celebrating that championship season. Koval cherishes the memories. Just don't ask him about the Harvard game.

Send e-mail to stanrhoch@comcast.net.