I have always been a huge Pitt fan. I grew up a Pitt fan and I hated Penn State as a kid. I just never would even think about Penn State. My decision to go to Penn State was brutal.
Note: This article appears in the latest issue of Blue White Illustrated which mails today.
(Editor's note: The University of Pittsburgh was once
Penn State's biggest rival in all varsity sports. That is no
longer true — not since Penn State joined the Big Ten in
the early 1990s. At one time the competition in football
was bitter and intense, with an annual game played at
the end of the season that was as fervent and as any
other in college football. Greg Gattuso played for Penn
State and now coaches at Pitt. Here, in his own words,
is his unique perspective on the rivalry.)
By Greg Gattuso
As told to Lou Prato
I have always been a huge Pitt fan. I grew up a Pitt
fan and I hated Penn State as a kid. I just never
would even think about Penn State. My decision
to go to Penn State was brutal.
My Penn State teammate Nick Haden and I laugh. We
were cheering for Pitt half the time on the sidelines dur-
ing our first Pitt-Penn State game. It was strange in the
beginning. But I've had a love for both places and still
do. I've never had trouble balancing it. People ask me a
lot about it. I just know the respect that the players
have for each other. I'd say all of the animosity is
between the fans. I think the players respect each other
and like each other, and for whatever reason people
made some choices. I love Pitt football. I love Pitt bas-
ketball. And since 1980 I've loved Penn State football.
I have faith that (the Pitt-Penn State game) is going
to happen again. It's so good for the community and
for the state of Pennsylvania. It's at a point now
where there's a generation of kids that don't have this
anymore. Forget all the animosity and all the argu-
ments that people in power have. No matter what
side you're on, at some point somebody needs to
understand the importance to the kids.
The people that suffer are the kids growing up play-
ing football in this area. They lose out on one of the
best games in the country. There's Michigan-Ohio
State. There's Texas and Oklahoma. There's Florida-
Florida State. USC-UCLA. And Pitt-Penn State. You
have certain games that are important. The kids in
this community and in Pennsylvania have been
deprived of one of the great college football games. I
think you got a group of kids that haven't experienced
it. That's one of my most distinctive memories as a kid
growing up. Pitt-Penn State. Three Rivers Stadium.
Carson Long misses a field goal. I was there with my
brother. (In 1975, in one of the most thrilling endings
of the long rivalry, Pitt's kicker, Carson Long missed a
23-yard field goal with 1:37 left and Penn State lead-
ing 7-6 and then missed another field goal from 45
yards on the last play of the game.)
What made the Pitt-Penn State game great were
friends and neighbors and relatives playing against
each other. It might be different with Michigan-Ohio
State, but that was Pitt and Penn State. I think there
were 25 kids from my high school and we all grew up
together and 13 went to Penn State and 12 or 13
went to Pitt. It just kills me that they don't play the
game. It's a shame because, God, 20 years of great
football gone. I just hope that somebody can be a big
enough person to step up in this situation and get
this game back on, because that's all it is. I don't
care about what happened in the past. There's no
reason for this game not to be played.
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