Bellmar grad Sarra was key member of Paterno staff
Submitted photo
Bellmar High School graduate Joe Sarra is shown during his college playing days at California State College, now known as California University of Pa.
Submitted photo
Bellmar High School graduate Joe Sarra played football for California State College (now California University of Pa.) and went on to have a successful coaching career at Penn State under Joe Paterno, winning the 1986 national title there.
When Joe Sarra was inducted into the Mid Mon Valley All Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, it capped off an illustrious career in sports, which even included officiating one season in the old American Football League and much more.
Sarra, the senior class president and a 1955 graduate of Bellmar High School, was a fullback during the fall months before donning his catcher’s gear in the spring. After his high school days he continued his education at the University of Toledo where he played football. He later transferred to California State College where he played baseball and football as a fullback and linebacker. In 1958 his Vulcans football team went undefeated.
Joe Barcelona, a longtime area coach and educator said, “My cousin Joe was from Fayette City. My brother Charlie had gone to Toledo and he had had a great career there. When Joe graduated Charlie got him a scholarship to Toledo, but Joe ended up going to Cal.
“All Joe ever wanted to do was coach football. So he started coaching — his first job was at East Washington, the last year they had football (1961). Later he went to Southern Columbia and had a very successful career there, and he was coaching with Jimmy Russell when he went to Belle Vernon.”
Sarra was also an assistant at one point under Bap Manzini. He later moved up the coaching ladder when he became the head coach of the freshman team at Miami of Ohio.
“Joe was very meticulous, the type of guy who all he did was eat and drink football, nothing else,” continued Barcelona. “One time he came knocking on my door at 2:00 in the morning. He said, ‘Let’s watch film.’ I said, ‘I don’t watch film at 2:00 in the morning.’ He said, ‘Then I’ll see ya’. He took his projector and left. That’s how the guy was. Dedicated.
“Well, Joe also went to Lafayette (for a dozen seasons) as an assistant, the offensive and later defensive coordinator. He was going to all the clinics, meeting coaches, and this and that, always looking to improve. They got a new head coach at Lafayette and he and Joe had a misunderstanding so Joe left there.”
Coincidentally, Lafayette’s nickname was the same as Belle Vernon’s — the Leopards.
“Along the way he met Alex Sandusky who was a very powerful man at Penn State. Joe went there with his wife Barbara, and they had two little boys, Joe Jr. and Scott. Joe ended up working the first year for The Second Mile (organization for the benefit of young people). During this time they beat the University of Miami at the Fiesta Bowl for the national championship.
“The funny thing about Joe and the Penn State staff is that after the game I went to the hotel where they were staying to meet with him. There was nobody around, no big celebration — it was deserted. I guess after every game, Joe Paterno would get his family and go into hibernation, no big-time party like some of the big schools. I got on the phone with my cousin Joe and he and his family were celebrating a national championship with a pizza and Pepsi party, just the four of them. That’s how they were.”
Starting at Penn State in 1984, Sarra was a part of squads that went to 15 major bowl games. They won nine of those contests, including the 1986 National Championship and the 1994 Rose Bowl. He worked with linebackers for eight seasons and later became the defensive line coach. He helped two first-team All-American linebackers, Shane Conlan, a first-round draft pick of the Buffalo Bills, and Andre Collins, a 10-year NFL vet. He also coached defensive tackle Jimmy Kennedy, an All-American who played for the New York Giants when they won Super Bowl XLVI, and yet another first-team All-American in tackle Lou Benfatti. Later Sarra gave up coaching to become Paterno’s administrative assistant before retiring in 2004.
In an interview late in 2016, Barcelona said that when his cousin passed away in 2012 in College Park, Pa., at the age of 75, he delivered a eulogy.
“I started off with, ‘Joe was one of the two most single-purposed individuals I ever met — he and my brother Charlie. As good as Joe was as a coach with his national honors, I have to commend his wife for helping him to do this. She cut grass for him at times because he didn’t even know how to turn a lawn mower off.'”
Clearly Sarra was the picture of single-minded dedication to his vocation.