8 Nov
Excerpt from the upcoming Joe Paterno biography, Not My Problem-The Joe Paterno Story, by C. Howitt Fields.
CHAPTER THREE: The Grade School Incident
In 1934, when Paterno was 7 years old, an incident occurred at Brooklyn Preparatory School that would haunt many an individual to this day, but not Joe Paterno.
“I was in second grade,” Paterno recalled. “It was recess and I was outside, minding my own business, when my friend Jimmy Cockiavalli comes running up to me. ‘Joey!’ he cried. ‘Vinny Razulli is beating the crap out of Little Anthony! He’s beating him up pretty bad.’ So I asked Jimmy what he wanted me to do about it. ‘You’re the only kid Vinny’s afraid of!’ Jimmy cried. ‘You can help Little Ant! Hurry! Vinny’s beating him up something awful!’ So I asked Jimmy why should I get involved? What does this have to do with me? Why should I stick my neck out for Little Anthony?”
Paterno walked over to the crowd of his fellow classmates. They had formed a circle around the two boys involved in the one-sided scuffle. Indeed, big Vinny Razulli was wiping the concrete with Little Anthony’s face. Immediately, Paterno’s classmates began to cheer when they saw that Joe had supposedly come to save Little Anthony. Vinny Razulli turned to face Paterno and said, “Yeah, I’m kicking the crap out of Little Ant here! This is between him and me.”
Paterno shrugged and said, “We’ll see what the principal has to say about this.” He walked off and told the principal what was transpiring in the school playground.
Anthony DelPizzo, a.k.a. “Little Anthony” or “Little Ant” spent the next five days in the hospital. Vinny Razulli, meanwhile, was suspended for three days for his actions. He continued to bully Brooklyn Prep students, even after he graduated from the school. Years later, Razulli, now a retired mobster boss, laughed about his days at Brooklyn Prep. “Joe Paterno was the only kid I was afraid of,” he said. “He could have easily kicked the crap out of me. Probably would have sent me down a different path in life. But once I saw that he didn’t like to get involved, didn’t like to get his hands dirty, well, I knew I had smooth sailing.”
To this day many of Paterno’s Brooklyn Prep classmates wonder why Joe didn’t do anything to stop Razulli. “I swear Joe was even standing there watching the day Razulli ripped my (CENSORED) off and shoved them up my (CENSORED),” Little Anthony DelPizzo said years later. “I went to a Penn State game one time and I limped right up to Joe and I asked him why he didn’t do anything. He said, ‘What do you mean? I told the principal, didn’t I?’ Sure, Joe, I said. You told the principal. Good for you. Hope you felt good about yourself as you walked away from his office.”
“Joe Paterno then shrugged and walked away from me,” said Little Anthony. “He was always good at doing that.”