The jolt of excitement Rutgers star Pierce Frauenheim felt as he returned an interception was matched only by his anticipation of what came next.

The year was 1961, the era of two-way players. And, at the instruction of defensive backs coach and master motivator Dewey King, Rutgers team manager Tony Oliva greeted players who notched an interception on the sideline with a helmet sticker.

"I was anxious to get to the sideline," Frauenheim recalled of one instance when he iced a victory against Columbia, "so Tony could put a sticker on my helmet. All the better."

Ohio State often is cited as the founder of college football helmet stickers, but, while Buckeye leaves pervade the sport today, the practice might have originated during a great period of Rutgers football history, NJ Advance Media's research shows.

Those two teams meet at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Piscataway.

"If I presented that to them," Oliva said of informing 1960s era Rutgers players that helmet stickers started elsewhere, "they would all laugh and say, 'Are you kidding me?'"

The commonly accepted tale at Ohio State dates to 1968 and an alternate version originates at Miami University in Ohio in 1964, but King started awarding big white stars for interceptions -- and only for interceptions -- in 1960.

One year later, Rutgers completed its first undefeated season and led the nation with 25 interceptions returned for an eye-popping 405 yards. King believed "the true measure of good pass defense" was comparing interceptions and return yards to completions and passing yards.

Suddenly, King was speaking at national conventions in front of about 2,000 coaches.

King published a book in 1963 called "Jericho: A Modern System of Pass Defense" detailing schemes, practice drills and using helmet stickers for motivation and morale.

"This idea of getting stars put on their helmet for achieving something that nobody else had even tried to do, it really made a difference," King, 93, told NJ Advance Media from his home. "They took to it quickly."

Origins of helmet sticker



King is a self-described "military historian" who reads the Bible daily. He combined three interests when he taught the Rutgers pass defense to start yelling "Jericho" -- a Biblical term with the galvanizing power he desired -- after an interception. It was a code to set up blocks.

Soon, Jericho -- a spin-off of "Oskie" used for the same purpose at Tennessee -- and interception were interchangeable words in Rutgers' vocabulary. The idea of merely "holding" an offense was barred as a negative thought.

"When you saw that ball coming, you wanted to run with reckless abandon after you made the interception," said Sam Mudie, who returned two of his nation-high seven interceptions for touchdowns in 1961. "There was no such thing as batting down a pass. We would grab it."

King, who would have joined his two brothers in the military if not for lifelong debilitating headaches, was well-read on the "Black Sheep Squadron" of Marines, World War II heroes.

Col. Pappy Boyington, instructed tiny planes be painted on the fuselage of his pilots' planes to recognize enemies shot down.

"It was my thought that if painting a miniature enemy plane on fuselages for each enemy shot out of the skies in wartime was good," King wrote in his book, "then a star pasted on the helmet of each pass defender getting an interception in football during peace team would also be good. It has been. We believe in psychological warfare."

Why stars rather than footballs or a knight's helmet? Why the size, which is much bigger than today's stickers?

"Stars are more outstanding and more dominant," King recalled, "and they were similar to what Pappy Boyington was doing."

At a time when rushing was still the primary means of offense, King's ideas in three- and four-deep coverage were revolutionary. Rutgers played a combination of man-to-man and zone defense.

The King-contrived goal was for Rutgers to intercept one out of every eight passes. He wrote that interceptions "do more to break a team's morale than any one factor in football."

Head coach John Bateman -- who came with King from the University of Pennsylvania in 1960 -- gave out game balls, but the interception warranted its own distinction.

Mudie recalls the new coaches energized the team more because of the belief in winning and playing with reckless abandon -- an attitude he has brought to hobbies like skiing and bicycling -- than the stickers.

"Stickers were only for interceptions," Oliva said. "Then people (elsewhere) started to embellish on that: 'If it's a good play, we'll put a sticker on.'"

King's research at the time showed that tackles after interceptions were made about 75 percent of the time by the intended receiver. "Jericho" was an alert to knock down the receiver and form a wall of blockers down the sideline.

"When you heard that word, you were automatically looking for somebody to put down on the field," Mudie said. "Everybody on the team did the same thing. Only when you had it secured, you yelled 'Jericho!' at the top of your lungs, and everybody else yelled, 'Jericho! Jericho! Jericho!'"

Hidden treasure

In glass casing in a seldom-used hallway connecting two hardwood courts at College Avenue Gym is a hidden treasure of college football history.

One of Mudie's star-spangled helmets recognizes his seven "Jerichos" in 1961. Another "with the same stars Tony put on it" sits atop a bookshelf at Mudie's home in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

"The stars exert a warning and restraining effect on the enemy quarterbacks," Len Elliott, sports editor of the Newark Evening News, wrote in the foreword to King's book. "They are going to think twice before they throw the ball anywhere near a Rutgers back with three or four stars on his helmet."

One of Rutgers' annual opponents, Columbia, was at the forefront of expanding passing offense in the 1950s and Navy got on board a few years later, but the national leader in passing in 1960 threw for 1,676 yards.

By comparison, 102 quarterbacks exceeded that total in 2016. One already has in 2017.

"Nobody wanted to coach pass defense because you are exposed," King said. "It was a terrific challenge. We played against some of the best throwers in the country at the time. Everybody wanted to coach against the run."

But a "special group" at Rutgers embraced King's ideas, especially that cohesion and communication across the unit of backs would foster success. He called it "esprit de corps" -- a feeling of fellowship shared by a particular group.

Frauenheim, Mudie and Bob Yaksick were members of the same fraternity and joined King in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. King and his wife were resident supervisors of a Rutgers dormitory.

"We sell our players on the idea that good pass defense is actually an offensive weapon," King wrote. "Playing pass defense with a defensive unit that has a strong esprit de corps is a privilege and each boy who becomes part a part of this tightly knit group senses this fact. It permeates him. He loses himself in something bigger than himself."

A chart in the team locker room with game-by-game and running season totals of completions, attempts and interceptions served as a constant reminder of expectations.

"That challenged guys to get their name on there," King said. "We kept track of every move they made on pass defense."

Backup lineman Larry Makarevich is believed to be the first sticker recipient.

"We dared the opponent to throw the ball," Frauenheim said. "Once the ball goes up in the air, it's ours."

Tied to today

Helmet stickers and "Jericho!" disappeared at Rutgers under Bateman's orders soon after King's departure in 1967, but history has a way of repeating.

King brought the idea with him to later coaching stops, but by then it was popular with other college and high school teams. His helmet sticker idea is mentioned in the book 'Rutgers Football: A Gridiron Tradition in Scarlet."

Second-year Rutgers coach Chris Ash, who previously served as Ohio State's defensive coordinator, considered using helmet stickers with the Scarlet Knights even before he became aware of their place in school history.

"As we move forward, if we think it will be a good motivational tool, we'll consider it," Ash told NJ Advance Media. "Right now, it's not on the table."

Ash's secondary coach, Bill Busch, is a protege of highly regarded former Nebraska secondary coach George Darlington ... who played under King at Rutgers in 1960. Busch borrowed Oliva's copy of King's book, completing a full circle with the current pass defense.

Like King and Darlington, Busch teaches reaction and body position.

"The principles will always apply," Busch said. "George was always up for outside-the-box thinking and man-to-man coverage. His influence is in the drills we do, every thought process. He had a bunch of sayings that I still use to this today."

Frauenheim kept helmet stickers and "Jericho" alive through the end of his legendary 45-year coaching career at Immaculata High School in 2012.

"I think they also went after the football extra hard to get a 'Jericho,'" Frauenheim said of even his latest teams. "Dewey was an extra hard-worker and a coach I would try to be like because he motivated his players in a quiet way."

King actually first tried to implement his ideas at UPenn in 1959 but was denied because it was perceived as a "gimmick," according to a 1963 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Better-suited for the Big Ten -- where King served as an assistant coach on Michigan State's 1952 national championship team -- was the prevailing opinion at the time.

Ironic now.

Nearly six decades later, Rutgers will host Ohio State in its Big Ten home opener. At Ohio State, the tradition of helmet stickers is uninterrupted since 1968, though stickers are added between games, not in real-time on the sidelines as Oliva did.

"If indeed we were the first, I think it's really cool," a wise-cracking Mudie said. "I never heard that Ohio State claim, but if I had, I would've said, '1968? You're wrong.' I have a lot of witnesses -- as long as it's before the next 20 years, because I don't know how many of us will be around then."

Ryan Dunleavy may be reached at rdunleavy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rydunleavy. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.