Former Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers running back John Cappelletti was the only Penn State player ever to win the Heisman Trophy, which he claimed in 1973. Playing for Paterno from 1971-1973, Cappelletti racked up 3,735 all-purpose yards and 30 touchdowns.
1) What were your first impressions of Joe Paterno? How was the man who recruited you different from the image/idea you previously had of him?
"I think the whole recruiting process was different for me. Penn State was the most familiar, family-type atmosphere. When you went up to be recruited there your parents went with you and all the functions were centered around adult type activities or school activities. I think as far as that goes, it was a pretty familiar and comfortable setting. I got recruited late by Penn State, so Joe kinda stepped into the scene at a later date. My primary recruiter was George Welsh, who obviously turned out to be a pretty good coach at Virginia. He was Penn State's quarterback coach. Obviously looking back, it turned out great for me. The people there are still a tremendous group of people. They've stayed there just about all their lives -- a lot of the coaches, administrators and people in the ticket office. As far as the recruiting process goes, for me it was more go see the university because we didn't get a lot of exposure in those days. Even with Penn State, they'd be seeing them in the Orange Bowl in '68 or '69 playing against Kansas and Missouri. And I think one of the big decisions was my parents' first impression of Joe and the fact that Penn State was within driving distance of my parents house. They could go up there on weekends as opposed to Ohio State or Miami or some of the other places I visited."
2) What is your favorite JoePa story?
"I think one of the incidents in a game has been well documented is me going back into a game that was already out of hand for us. It was a special situation when it came to scoring four touchdowns in a game. For me, that would be the story. Practice stories have been pretty much documented by everybody. At some point and time during your four years at Penn State, if you didn't want to go after Joe and throw him against the wall or something, then he didn't care about you enough. If you didn't have one day like that where you just wanted to go after him in your four years there, he didn't care enough about you enough to make that happen, I guess. The stories for practice are pretty much the way it went during the game. The way he got involved with me that one incident during the game. It was done behind the scenes. I really didn't have much to say about it to Joe. It was kind of out of character for him."
3) What separates Paterno from other football coaches?
That's a tough one, but I think it's easy in certain ways too. First, I think Joe has the whole package of athletics, academics, fund raising efforts, integrating his student-athletes into the rest of the student population by not having athletic dorms, wanting them to excel academically during their career at Penn State, postgraduate work, things like that. He had the bigger picture when it came to viewing the student-athlete. Secondly, I think Joe is built a certain way as far as what mentality it takes to be a coach, how driven you have to be, how educated you have to be, how smart you have to be when it comes to X's and O's. It's just the whole package of things that I think a lot of guys have 90 percent some guys have 80 percent, but I think the standard now really is coach Paterno. I think Tom Osborne out of Nebraska would be somewhat close to that because of the program he ran for years. But I think Joe is still the standard because of his desire to do this over the amount of years that he's done it and the consistency and drive over that period of time. He doesn't take anything for granted except maybe once in a while and then he'll over correct it and work even harder the next time. 'Bear' Bryant people may not want to hear this, but even "Bear" didn't have the total package that Joe had. He was just in a position in those years to have the athletes and have the program, but it was more a football driven program."
4) Critique his style -- coaching and fashion. What wardrobe advice would you give your former coach?
"In a nutshell, his style of coaching is to prepare as best you can and then you go out and play the games. Hopefully during the games you make the adjustments as necessary with the game plan that you've prepared. The way you prepare and practice is obviously important to him. I'd say it's very direct and it's very hands on. It's funny to understand why things happen sometimes. Everybody made a big deal about Joe rolling up the cuffs of his pants as some sort of fashion thing. But I read one of his books and it was basically out of necessity -- his pants were always getting dirty at the bottom because he put on the coaching shoes and went out on the field. So he found out that you can roll your pants up and the inside will get dirty but when you roll them down you'll be OK. It's little stuff like that, logical stuff. Joe dresses practically for his profession. When you're out there coaching and working up a sweat you don't want to dress too well. For games, he dresses up as much as is appropriate. Most of the time he has a tie on, a long sleeve shirt. As far as my input, I don't know what changes I would make. I can't see Joe in a short sleeve golf shirt and a golf visor like Steve Spurrier. Or some Nike wraparound glasses like Bobby Bowden. Joe has developed his own style. To try and get used to him in any other way -- I don't know if you could do that. Maybe you'd have to ask his wife, Sue, about that."
5) What impact has Paterno had on your life?
"Well, Joe, inside football or outside football, it all starts to blend a little bit. You get out in the real world and you see what you went through to be successful at an athletic level -- the preparation, the hard work, getting yourself to a higher level of athletics and in these cases academics, getting more of an education, broadening yourself. These are all things that crossed over. He used a saying when we were playing football, "you can take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves" Well, if that's not true with raising children or going out in everyday life in general, I don't know what is. All the little things like that he had a real handle on. I think, for a man that was still relatively young in life, he just had a certain way he wanted to get things done. It wasn't necessarily cookie-cutter, he brought a few things to the party that nobody else had been doing before. He integrated his players into the university. You know, all those little things and all those little thoughts and all those little sayings that you got for the four years you were there certainly carried on to the rest of your life at least in mine and I'm sure with a lot of other players to the point where it's pretty basic stuff. But you know what, raising kids and making a living and doing things outside of football gets to be pretty basic stuff. If you can do it that way and you keep track of things, you make sure your consistent in life, all these little things in life that he did as a coach for his players, you can almost take those and make a manual for raising your kids. It might be a military manual, but that's OK."
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