8
Friday, October 26.1979
Universitv Dailv Kansan
Orange Bowl's 12th man recalls '69 loss
By GENE MYERS
Sports Writer
Rick Abernethy had every right to laugh
Rick Ackernby had every right to laugh. Undefeated and No. 1 ranked Penn State thought it was a small step from the national championship. Alabama had just shaken a few years ago, and then second-ranked Crimson. Tide's 147-197 sugar Bowl lead was in line.
It should have been a first and national championship for Penn State. But it wasn't. He got the job after the crime. Penn State had too many men on the field. Their sentence: Alabama first down
Rick Abernethy couldn't control himself as visions of Jan. 1, 1983, raced by. Exactly 10 years before the Penn State penalty, Rick Abernethy lost to UCLA 15-14. Orange Bowl loss to Penn State.
His presence gave the Nittany Lions a second chance at a two-point-conversion. And with 15 seconds left in the game, the Nittany Lions scored the left side for the points and the victory.
"Penn State's 12th man in 1979 wasn't as偶然ly successful," Abernethy said. Her team played just a few games and play scaled their doom. When Penn State finally got the ball back it was late for the game. "They lost."
"I thought it was funny. I have a lot of "I respect for their coach, Joe Paterno, and in one way for him to win the national title," he said with a nice voice. In another, it was my sweet revenge."
Abernethy, now the strength coach for the NFL, Kansas City Chiefs, won't laugh just because of the gridiron he. Counts against him are not many at him as several coaching clinics in the mid-
'70s. Their first post-Orange Bowl meeting came in 1972, a few days before Abernethy's marriage.
"My father had met Penn State's defensive coordinator and told him I was getting married," he said. "Ward must have gotten around because I got this telegraph from my coach, who happily for you as you made Jan. 1, 1968 Sincerely yours, Joe Paterno."
"I really appreciated that and thought it was funny. We've met several times since and have had good laughs about the past, like the Sugar Bowl. I can laugh a little more."
KU had the '89 Orange Bowl all but clinched when Penn State partially deflected Bill Bell's punt. With 1:16 left, the Penn State yards to midfield where the Lions took over.
To prevent the long bomb, head coach Pepper Rodgers sent in the prevent defense, which included Abernethy as a fourth linebacker. But on the very next play Rodgers had to be matched and captured with Campbell on a 6-yard pass to his defender Bukky Hunt lost in the lights.
With the ball now on the 3, the successful prevent team was ordered off the field. But Abernethy, oblivious to the sub-fault, annotated. He recalled the final frigate minute:
"After the long pass, the goal line defense came in, but we had never practiced going from the prevent to a goal line. You figure going to all the 80-yard bomb off your prevent."
"I didn't actually see if we had sent anyone in and no one tapped me or called my name, the way we're supposed to on substitutions.
Photo courtesy of KU Sports Information
Penn State called a timeout after the touchdown, which made the score 14-13. They decided to try for a two-point conversion and a victory.
pushed out-of-bounds, but the officials called it a touchdown. To this day, there's still doubt whether he scored."
"Burkart rolled right look to tight end Ted Walkich, and I was in front diving for the ball and we broke it up," Aberneth recounted.
"Penn State went with a quick huddle and sent their 'backfill Tom Cherry' up the wall. You might remember it as clear as night and day. They up the middle with the backfill again from the bottom."
"On the third play, the quarterback bobbed the ball for a split second and it looked like an off-tackle play. I stepped up in front of him to see where the ball was and sprinted to the left corner. I saw him set
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"Then I saw the flag. Emery Hicks and I were the first to reach the official, and I didn't have any idea what was wrong.
"All the ref said was 'too many on the necte for Kansas.' That all he had to say. It hit me. I wasn't supposed to be on the goal line. It was supposed to be that walking was off the field digged."
Today Abernethy, who said he had never seen the game film, takes a more philosophical outlook of the accident.
"I was the 12th man for four plays so the officers blew it, too," he said with a chuckle. "One of the officials just happened to count during the timeout. But really it is not fault. It wasn't a coaching error, a defensive injury or my fault. It just happened."
"I know nobody called my name or tapped me, but I always said that I would have rather been the 12th man on the field and been the 18th man on the bench and lost."
As the famous 12th man, Abernethy is assured a place in KU's athletic history. But the rest of his football career was anything but noteworthy.
Recruited in 1994 out of Kansas City, Mo. former head coach Jack Mitchell, he was named a first-year back during his sophomore year, injuries off the offensive backfield so he was not available.
"The only reason I was switched was injuries and my quick feet," he said. Salma Shanklin, a sophomore who two years later would be the Orange Bowl MVP with a 46-pound punt return, swiped his position. Back up was Jordan Davis, who saw spal dot duty because of a torn shoulder.
Under new head coach Rodgers, he was the starting monster man in spring ball only to rejuvenate his shoulder, forcing him to sit down and be careful not to injure only to find himself all but forrested.
"That spring I was on the sixth team," he said. "I was so low that the Xerox machine hardly printed my name, it was so close to the bottom of the page.
"Through another calamity of injuries and other events, I was moved to inside linebacker because we were down to three linebackers.
"I never had any illusions about my
ability, though. You know you're in trouble
when you're 5-10, 192 pounds on game day and you're to break five seconds in the 40-yard dash. But I was on the special teams team to prevent defenses all the way to Miami."
After earning the 12th man label, Abernethy set out to use his journalism degree. A year later, he was back at KU seeking an education degree.
"I started coaching in Kansas City after that degree and I fell into the trap," he said. "I needed a coach, but it was unquenchable. But I was coaching for myself. I wanted to win so that I could pat him on the back."
"I had to learn there was no time for that personal basis. There are so many players and so few coaches. And the name of the game is winning, not the old rah, rah, rah. The kids in it all a part of growing up. I made up my life on only way to change it was to get back in."
"By that time my disillusionment with sports at the major college level was gone," he said. "It started to get to me with all my injuries—shoulder, foot, rib, shoulder again—my junior jacket. There was no time for humanistic quality on the college or pro-level.
He went back to KU again, this time in guidance and counseling.
Abernethy jumped from Southwest to Center to Ruskin high schools in Kansas City, Mo., trying to spread his "6-3-0" game. He took his job with the Clubs of March. He built his job with the Clubs of March.
But wherever he goes, his 12th man tag follows.
"I've never worried what the $0,000 Orange Bowlwors or the KU fans or the LSU fans are about," Ms. O'Brien says. "The people that mattered most were my teammates and coaches and letting them know how important they are to the oldest man on the team, the only fifth-year senior, and then to make a mistake."
Yet Aberneth is hardly a martyr. Despite the cruelties football has slapped on him, he is optimistic about the future and wants a place in the game.
"I'm more of a people's coach now and I like to hear him, he said, 'I'm going with kids with kicks, but the coaching are only 2.48 and I'm only 34.' That's all right for now, but returning to the high schools is still important," she said.
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