Catching Up With: Former Pen Argyl Area High School football great Woody Petchel

FROM THE EXPRESS TIMES

Name: Woody Petchel

Local connection: Pen Argyl Area High School (1972).

Notables:

Green Knights all-time career rushing leader (4,529 yards).

Graduated with Pennsylvania career records for touchdowns (79) and points scored (486).

Four-year tailback (1972-75) for Joe Paterno at Penn State.

Currently resides: Chicago, State College, Pa.Woody Petchel has always been on the go.


It started for Petchel in 1968 as a freshman running back at Pen Argyl Area High School when, playing for his father, the legendary Elwood Petchel, he put together a career that saw him rush for a school-record 4,529 yards. He also set state scoring records with 79 career touchdowns and 486 points.


Upon his 1972 graduation, Petchel followed his father's footsteps to Penn State where he played for four seasons under Joe Paterno and gained 621 yards as a senior tailback for the Nittany Lions.


With his glory days on the gridiron well in his past, Woody Petchel is nevertheless still on the move. But rather than operating behind guards and tackles, he navigates a steering wheel or hops across the ponds as an executive for the Chicago-based Marmon Group, a company that produces electrical components, industrial components and transportation equipment and provides services including constructional retail solutions worldwide.

"I'm a group president for Marmon, we're part of Berkshire-Hathaway," Petchel was saying recently. "I'm responsible for 13 companies. We have about 50 manufacturing and distribution facilities worldwide.


"Basically, I'm the CEO and part of my responsibilities are meeting with people and planning growth strategies. Seventy-five percent of what I do is visit our site facilities throughout North America as well as China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea. We're also all throughout Europe."
Petchel credits both his father, who died last year, and Paterno for helping him not only with football but in life.

"When I graduated from Penn State, I was 22 but I was ready to move on because I was fortunate enough to be around two of the greatest leaders in Elwood Petchel and Joe Paterno," Woody Petchel said.


"It was a great experience and a challenge playing for my dad. A lot of the values he, and my mom, instilled in me, I still live by them today. My dad taught me all about setting goals and working toward achieving them. Also, how do you handle failure and turn it into success.


"That created my drive to be successful."
Petchel, who was the first freshman to travel with the Penn State varsity in 1972 (the first year freshmen were eligible to do so), learned more lessons from Paterno.

"He was so detail-oriented," Petchel said. "He'd always say that you take care of the little things and everything else would fall into place.


"Halfway through our practices, we'd take a Coke break. We'd drink those little six- or eight-ounce Coke bottles and Joe would gather us and tell us that we could either get better or we'd get worse. We wouldn't remain the same. If you were satisfied and didn't work to get better, you'd go backward. That's not the way to achieve better things."
A season-ticket holder who splits time between residences in Chicago and State College, Petchel and his family, wife Sharon, son Jared and daughter Jordan, both Penn State grads, usually follow the Nittany Lions home and away.

"We don't miss too many games," he said.

He does miss Paterno, who died last month of lung cancer after having been fired in November in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal.

"I cherish the time I shared with him," Petchel said. "Every year, we'd be invited to watch preseason practice and the first scrimmage, and he'd come over and talk to me and it was like 1972 all over again. He never, ever, forgot a name. He took a great interest in his players. It's something I try to do with the people I work with."

How does Petchel think Paterno will be remembered?

"I feel extremely sad about what happened," Petchel said. "I just hope the public remembers Joe not for just one event but for everything he's done not only for players like myself, but for others, the university, and the state of Pennsylvania."

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