There was once a time when Pitt was the most revered college football team in the country, when Pitt Stadium was the grandest and most versatile sports facility around and when being the starting fullback for the Panthers was akin to being the tailback at Southern California.

Ernie Bonelli, 89, should know.

He played that position for the Panthers in that era.

A retired industrial engineer and salesman living in a retirement village in Upper St. Clair with Ruth, his wife of 62 years and a former Pitt classmate, Bonelli believes he is one of only two living Panthers to have played for legendary Jock Sutherland.

"Tough, tough coach," Bonelli remembered. "Jock had eyes in the back of his head. We practiced in groups and he made all the rounds. He knew what was going on."

Those who played for Sutherland rejoiced in imitating the coach's Scottish accent and Bonelli was no exception. After a few minutes of talking about Sutherland, Bonelli slipped naturally into an impersonation without prodding.

"Jock would say 'When you throw the ball, you scruff your ear,'" Bonellisaid, complete with accent.

As a result, during the two years Bonelli started in the Panthers' backfield, he threw a grand total of one pass out of Pitt's single-wing offense. But Bonelli was hardly a fringe player during the three years he played on the varsity. He succeeded Marshall Goldberg as Pitt's fullback in 1939.

And though 1939 is considered the beginning of a rather mediocre era for Pitt football with the changing of the guard from Sutherland to Charles Bowser, there was still some life left in the program.

Pitt began the season by becoming the first college football team to travel by airplane for a game in Seattle against the Washington Huskies.

"It was a TWA tri-motor plane. Dick Cassiano [the last remaining member of the "Dream Backfield"] got sick during the flight, but it didn't bother me. I ate his meal," Bonelli said.

It took three days for the Panthers to arrive in Seattle, but they defeated the Huskies, 27-6.

A 20-0 victory against West Virginia and a 14-13 triumph against Duke followed, and Pitt was the top-ranked team in the nation when the first poll of the season came out Oct. 16.

The victory against the Blue Devils was sweet since the Panthers lost the final game of the 1938 season in Durham, N.C., 7-0, but it was also costly.

Center Dick Fullerton, in his second year as a starter, suffered a concussion, and in Pitt's single-wing the center was considered perhaps the most important player. Pitt proceeded to lose its next game of the 1939 season to Duquesne, 21-13. The Panthers dropped to No. 18.

Next up was Fordham, whom Pitt had never lost to. That streak likely would have continued, but Cassiano fumbled at the goal line.

"Vince Dennery scooped up the ball and ran 99 yards for a touchdown," Bonelli said. Pitt ended up losing, 27-13.

The Panthers would not see the Top 20 again for another 10 years. They finished 5-4 in '39 and 3-4-1 in 1940, Pitt's first losing season since 1912.

"I will not comment on Charles Bowser except to say he was no Jock Sutherland," Bonelli said.

As a sophomore in 1938, Bonelli made a contribution to the defending national champions with a long kickoff return in the Panthers' 26-6 victory Oct. 15 at Wisconsin.

It was a triumph that not only gave Pitt a 4-0 record, but the No. 1 ranking when the first AP poll of the season came out two days later.

The '38 Panthers finished No. 8 in the AP poll with an 8-2 record, but came reasonably close to repeating as national champs. After starting the season 6-0, Pitt took a 22-game unbeaten streak to a home game against 4-1 and No. 19 Carnegie Tech.

"Marshall Goldberg got hurt in the first quarter against Carnegie Tech," Bonelli said, reciting the circumstances of the 20-10 loss. "It was a big disappointment. If I remember correctly, we returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown."

Despite the fact Carnegie Tech and Duke knocked the Panthers from undefeated ranks in 1938 and 1939, Bonelli said the players of the era thought their primary rivals were Penn State and West Virginia.

"I don't have a real answer why, but there was a big rivalry between the two schools and then came Carnegie Tech and Duquesne," he said.

Shutout victories against Nebraska and Penn State closed out the '38 season before the loss at Duke.

"It snowed like heck," Bonelli said. "Larry Peace had a fumble that was returned for a touchdown. He was a substitute for Goldberg, but Duke did not have a first down at all."

Unbeknownst to the players at the time, the game would be the end of what is considered the greatest era in Pitt football history. Sutherland would resign as coach four months later.

"John Bowman, the chancellor at Pitt, said you had to maintain a C average to play. We lost five or six good players that way," Bonelli said.

But this was hardly the final straw for Sutherland. He had been arguing with the Pitt administration since the 1937 Rose Bowl when, despite earning $95,000 for beating Washington, 21-0, the players were not properly remunerated at a time before such payouts were illegal.

"I'd heard Jock gave them $5 out of his own pocket and the losing team got more from the school," Bonelli said.

Sutherland won a battle with then-athletic director Don Harrison, but when Sutherland's former running back Jimmy Hagan replaced Harrison things got worse.

Hagan started making out football schedules without consulting Sutherland. It has been stated Bowman seemed to resent Sutherland's fame and restricted his coach's endorsement appearances.

Finally, Bowman and Hagan attempted to and eventually succeeded to take away a $48 monthly stipend football players on scholarship received for room and board in an era before Pitt had residence halls.

Bonelli's personal memories of Sutherland show the differences between now and then. For instance, Sutherland never met his players until they first stepped onto Pitt's practice field.

So, after starring for 1936 WPIAL Class B football champion Aspinwall High, Bonelli chose Pitt instead of Duke after being recruited by a local dentist.

In practice, players were discouraged from drinking fluids, the dangerous code of the day which believed athletes could get water logged.

"[Sutherland] would fill up a five-gallon milk can with water and put oats in it. You drew water out of it with a sponge if you wanted a drink or to wipe your face. So nobody drank any water!"

But perhaps the biggest contribution Bonelli made to the Panthers was not on the field, but the baseball diamond.

Baseball was revived as a varsity sport at Pitt in 1939 after a 15-year hiatus. Bonelli was the team's first star of the new era, a .348 hitter who batted fourth on a team that played on a baseball field in Pitt Stadium.

Home plate was located in front of the sections numbered in the mid-'20s and players hit towards "The Hole" through which football players and the band entered the field.

"We had a short right field and a long left and center field," Bonelli said. "Right field must have been about 200 feet away from home plate. The rule was if you hit it into the stands it was a double. If you hit in left or center and it went by the outfielders it was a sure home run."

Trees Field, today the Panthers' baseball home, was then the football practice field.

Following 2-10 and 3-10 baseball seasons in 1939 and 1940, Pitt enjoyed a 9-4 record in '41 before Bonelli graduated with a double major in business administration and industrial engineering.

"Baseball was my first love. I could have signed with Detroit or [the] Philadelphia [Phillies], but I was drafted into World War II," he said.

Bonelli played for the Third Air Force Gremlins during the war, sharing a backfield with Charley Tripp, who he still remains close with today. The pair faced off against each other in the 1944 Blue-Gray game.

Thirty pounds heavier than his college weight of 180, Bonelli played for the Chicago Cardinals in 1945, though he was not reunited with Goldberg, who was serving in the Navy.

He was reunited with Sutherland for a three-game stint playing with the Steelers in 1946. Though Sutherland died in 1948 from a brain tumor, Bonelli remembers Sutherland as still lucid during his brief pairing with Bill Dudley in the backfield.

From there, Bonelli became a sales representative for 35 years in the Pittsburgh area for A.S. Aloe, a major medical and surgical supplies company based in St. Louis.

"What helped me was football because all the hospital purchasing agents knew me," Bonelli said.

He has five children, Richard and Frank, both engineers; Nancy, a high school teacher in Louisville, Ky.; Mary, an insurance investigator for the state of Ohio; and Jean, who works at UPMC Children's Hospital, and seven grandchildren.

"We have good kids," Bonelli said. "I'm still thankful to be here. I'm a very happy man."