Program spotlight: Pat Peppler

Editor’s note: Fifty years ago, NC State accomplished the unthinkable, winning its first ACC Championship under the guidance of fourth-year head coach Earle Edwards. With an offensive backfield that featured undersized backs Dick Christy and Dick Hunter, the Wolfpack had a reliable offense and a spectacular defense, which record five shutouts in 10 games. Throughout the season, we will remember the 1957 ACC Champions as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of their remarkable - and unexpected - championship.

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Pat Peppler only saw NC State’s 1957 ACC Championship team - which he helped recruit, coach and prepare for every game - only two times.

Such was the plight, back then, of an assistant coach responsible for scouting upcoming opponents. The only time he saw the Wolfpack was in a 48-13 win at Maryland and the title-clinching season-finale against South Carolina, in which Dick Christy scored all of the Wolfpack’s win in the 29-26 victory.

Still, the 85-year-old Peppler, the only surviving member of Edwards’ coaching staff from that season, vividly remembers that championship season as one of the fondest a football career that included an association with four Super Bowl champions, two high school state titles in Michigan and a brief stint as an interim NFL head coach. And he remembers Edwards as his greatest mentor, even after spending an NFL career working with Vince Lombardi, Don Shula and Bum Phillips, even if Peppler eventually had a falling out that forced him to leave Raleigh just prior to the Wolfpack winning four more ACC titles in the 1960s.

“That [1957] season was great in so many ways,” said Peppler, who retired to Daphne, Ala., in the early 1990s. “We came from nowhere to win that championship. When we arrived there in 1954, when we only gave out 13 full scholarships and seven partial scholarships. Those players - all of them undersized and fast - were the nucleus of the 57 team. We just didn’t have a lot of money or players to work with.”

Duke, the most dominating team in the area for more than three decades, regularly gave out more than two dozen scholarships and always redshirted nearly everyone. The Wolfpack, meanwhile, played with only 59 players on the 57 roster, most of whom came from the hardscrabble areas of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Most of its games were played on the road, because of the deteriorating condition of on-campus Riddick Stadium.

For the Wolfpack to even compete that season - when the team opened with five consecutive road games that included trips to Clemson, Maryland, Miami and Florida State - was simply unthinkable.

But Edwards, a Penn State graduate who worked at his alma mater for 13 years and then spent four seasons at Michigan State, put together a loyal and accomplished coaching staff that helped install the same system that helped the Spartans win the 1952 national championship.

Al Michaels, Edwards’ defensive coordinator, was an old college friend who had spent 19 years as an assistant at Penn State. Carey Brewbaker was one of North Carolina’s most successful high school coaches, with three state championships, two more co-championships and three runner-up finishes at Durham High School, before Edwards hired him to handle local recruiting. Bill Smaltz, who played under Edwards at Penn State, was a former head coach at Juniata College who Edwards hired to coach the Wolfpack freshman team. Johnny Clements was newly hired from the University of North Carolina, where he had played with Charlie “Choo-Choo” Justice.

And Peppler was a well-known figure in Michigan, where he twice won state titles at both Grant and East Lansing. He was also a part-time scout for Michigan State under Biggie Munn. He and Edwards became close because

Edwards’ oldest son, Jack, played his senior season for Peppler at East Lansing High and because Peppler was a fixture in the Michigan State coaches offices. As soon as Edwards was hired to coach the Wolfpack in 1954, Peppler asked for a job.

“I learned a great deal from Earle,” Peppler said. “I was grateful for that. I thought the best way to pay him back was to work hard.”

Building a program was tough, both because the school had little football tradition (until State won the ACC in 1957, its last championship was 30 years before) and the program had a small, thin roster. Only 17 players on

the 57 roster tipped the scales at more than 200 pounds, and many of those weights were inflated just so they wouldn’t seem so small, according to the players on the team. The biggest player on the team was tackle 6-1,

230-pound tackle Bob Paroli, a 26-year-old senior from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., whose size was more attributable to his four years in the Army than the NC State training program.

“We got a bunch of good, tough players from up in Pennsylvania and from North Carolina,” Peppler said. “We were a little undersized - we tended to get a lot of duck-butts who were about 5-10 or 6-0. The good thing is that

they could get under those bigger guys.

“Bill Rearick and Fran Tokar were the guards on that team. Rearick was not pro size - about 5-9, 190 pounds - but he was as good a blocker as I was ever around in all my experiences. That’s the kind of player we had on our team back then.”

Peppler was in the press box for the biggest game of the 1957, the season-finale at South Carolina. He was on the phone to the bench with reserve tackle Francis Palandrani after South Carolina intercepted a pass that seemingly ended the game with a 26-26 tie. But, even though time had expired, the Gamecocks were called for defensive interference on the interception and the Wolfpack got one final play from the South Carolina 30-yard-line.

Peppler was trying to come up with a play that spread the field and put the ball in the hands of senior captain Dick Hunter, a quick scatback who was hard to tackle in the open field. He was shocked when Paladrani told him that Dick Christy, who had scored all of the Wolfpack’s other 26 points, was going to try the first field goal of his career.

“What?!” Peppler said. “He’s never tried a field goal or an extra point in his career!”

Christy made the field goal, and the Wolfpack had its first of the school’s seven ACC Championships.

“It was a beautiful kick,” Peppler said. “Palandrani came up to me after the game and said Boy, coach, you sure had a lot of faith in Christy.”

Within five years, Peppler and Edwards had a falling out over salary, and Peppler moved on to Wake Forest, just in time for the Deacons to go 0-10. In December, 1963, Peppler received a telephone message from NFL legend

Lombardi, asking if he would like to interview for the job as director of player personnel for the Green Bay Packers, a job that had been vacated by Dick Voris, the former Virginia head coach who Peppler knew through his ACC contacts. Voris recommended Peppler to Lombardi and he beat out two other candidates for the job.

In his Peppler’s first year with the franchise, the Packers won the 1964 NFL championship. “I went from 0-10 at Wake Forest to world champions,” Peppler said. In 1967 and 68, the Packers won the first two Super Bowls. In the early 1970s, Peppler became the director of professional scouting for the Miami Dolphins, arriving just in time for two more Super Bowl championships.

That included the Dolphins’ perfect 1973 season, when Shula and company recorded the only undefeated season in professional football history.

He had other NFL jobs throughout the 1970s and 80s, including a nine-game stint as the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 1976. He took over the team after Bum Phillips was fired midway through the campaign and compiled a 3-6 record

After his NFL career ended in 1985, Peppler was still involved in several professional football ventures, including the San Antonio entry in the expanded Canadian Football League. Even now, at 85, Peppler considers himself between jobs.

Even with all of those experiences, nothing quite compares to NC State’s first ACC Championship.

“It really was a miracle team,” Peppler said.

Tim Peeler is managing editor of GoPack.com. He can be reached at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

North Carolina State University Athletics

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