Archive for October, 2009
Joe Paterno Profiled in the New Sports Illustrated
The new issue of Sports Illustrated is out today, and while most of the issue is focused on previewing the coming NBA season — new teammates LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal are featured on the cover — there’s a feature inside that Penn State football fans won’t want to miss. Written by veteran sportswriter Joe Posnanski, “Top of the World, Pa!” profiles Joe Paterno in the form of a letter to his late father, Angelo. It’s loaded with great stories and anecdotes. You can read it online here, but both for the photos and posterity’s sake, the actual issue is a keeper.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
A Tough Choice: Voting for the Senior Class Gift
The Allen Street Gates, when Allen Street continued through campus.
The Senior Class Gift has been a Penn State tradition since the Class of ’61—that’s 1861! — donated a portrait of Evan Pugh to hang in Old Main. Among the more notable gifts through the decades: the Allen Street Gates (thank you, Class of 1916), the Celebration Garden at Rec Hall (great call, Class of 2007), and the gift that’s impossible to top, the Nittany Lion Shrine (bravo, Class of 1940).
Voting is under way now for the Class of 2010 gift. Seniors can vote online or in the HUB-Robeson Center for one of three options, detailed on the blog PSUseniors.com. The choices:
1. A public sculpture and endowed scholarship. The staff at the Palmer Museum of Art has installed the sculpture, by Harry Gordon, between Armsby and North Freer so voters (and the rest of us) can check it out.
2. A maintenance endowment for the HUB Aquarium (which was a gift of the Class of 1999).
3. A marsh meadow boardwalk and overlook for the Arboretum at Penn State.
It’s been a big month for class gifts. Just two weeks ago, the Old Main Bell was removed from its perch, thanks to the Class of 2009. It will be restored and displayed a ground level, enabling all of us to enjoy it.
The Class of 2010 winner will be announced next week, so stay tuned.
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Jim Zarroli Leads a Roundtable for Us
We held the roundtable in Robb Hall of the Hintz Family Alumni Center. (Click to see bigger version.)
A project I’ve been working on for the last several months finally came to fruition today, when a group of key campus leaders came to the alumni center to talk about college costs and affordability.
Penn State has long prided itself on providing an affordable education to the sons and daughters of the working class—that’s what a land-grant school is supposed to do, after all—but that mission is a tough one to uphold in the face of shrinking state appropriations, a nationwide recession, and other challenges.
NPR's Jim Zarroli ’79 moderated the discussion.
So we brought together some major players to discuss these issues in Robb Hall at the Hintz Family Alumni Center, and we were especially happy to have NPR business correspondent Jim Zarroli ’79 drive in from New York to moderate the discussion.
The panelists were Anna Griswold, executive director of student aid at Penn State; Don Heller, a faculty member in the College of Education and director of Penn State’s Center for the Study of Higher Education; Gavin Keirans, president of the University Park Undergraduate Association; Rod Kirsch, senior vice president for development and alumni relations; and Rob Pangborn, vice president for undergraduate education.
Don Heller and Anna Griswold were among the five panelists.
What did they talk about? I don’t know—I was too busy running around with a camera and periodically stopping back to make sure the audio recorder was working. I did catch some bits of conversation about how facilities construction and upgrades at Penn State are funded … about the role of the University’s capital campaign in raising money for more scholarships … and about the latest news out of Harrisburg about Penn State’s appropriation and how it may hinge on casinos adding table games.
I’ve already shipped the recording off to a transcriptionist, who will return it to us as a text document; from there we’ll edit it down and print it as a feature in our January-February issue.
Tina Hay, editor
Keeping Up With Deon Butler
Deon Butler ’08 finished his college career last season as Penn State’s career receptions leader. Like most NFL rookies, Butler — now with the Seattle Seahawks — is finding the going a bit tougher in the pro ranks. He’s not complaining, though. Instead, he’s keeping a weekly diary for The Seattle Times, in which he writes about getting acclimated to life in the Emerald City, biding his time behind veteran receivers, and what it’s like to have his mother take over every inch of his bathroom sink when she comes to visit. It’s good stuff.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Neil Rudel on Derek Moye
Neil Rudel ’78 has a good story in today’s Altoona Mirror on redshirt sophomore Derek Moye, who is emerging as a first-rate wide receiver for Penn State. Moye had six receptions for 120 yards in yesterday’s win over Minnesota, and he’s the one who caught that pass at the edge of the end zone that, upon review by the officials, was ruled a completion and a touchdown.
Here’s a little fact from Neil’s story that I didn’t know: Moye lettered in four sports in high school.
Tina Hay, editor
A.J. Wallace Meets Another Challenge
Senior cornerback A.J. Wallace’s long trip out of Joe Paterno’s doghouse began over the summer with a wake-up call.
No, not one of those cliched moments in which everything becomes crystal clear. This was literally a wake-up call. From his father.
Wallace’s dad is an early riser, a 6 a.m. kind of guy. Wallace himself is not, as evidenced by his inability to attend a 9:45 a.m. class, which prompted Paterno to say Wallace wouldn’t play for the first few games of this season because he was missing too many classes. (Both Paterno and Wallace call that “a challenge.”) So Wallace’s dad started calling every morning at 8:30, just to make sure Wallace was awake and aware that his class would be starting in 75 minutes.
That worked so well that it impressed Paterno, who allowed Wallace to play in the first game. And this semester, Wallace said, he’s getting himself out of bed. He said it’s not much of a problem.
“It takes seven days to make a habit, 21 days to break a habit,” Wallace said. He got the advice from one of his teachers, but he can’t remember which one. “I wish I could, so I could give credit,” he said.
Wallace spent most of Saturday getting credit. He was one of the defensive stars of Penn State’s 20-0 shutout of Minnesota, shutting down the Big Ten’s leading wide receiver, Eric Decker, and making a spectacular fourth-quarter goal-line stop (with roomie Navarro Bowman) that preserved the Nittany Lions’ first shutout in two seasons.
Defensive backs aren’t normally the guys making those goal-line stops. That’s generally for the aggressive linebackers, the massive linemen. But Wallace was ready—the coaches had informed him that he would be primarily responsible for covering Decker. (Yes, the coaches and Wallace call that “a challenge,” too.) He had spent the week not only priming himself physically for the task, but preparing mentally.
That involved a change in his playlist. No more Fabolous, a rapper Wallace described as “more relaxed.” He switched to the peppier, more aggressive Jim Jones. (No, not the Kool-Aid guy.)
So, will he be listening to a little more Jim Jones before the Michigan game next week? Wallace smiled. “Exactly.”
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Romeo & Juliet On Our Lawn
Unlike our senior editor Lori Shontz ’91, I am not a Shakespeare geek. In fact, I think I probably had never in my life seen a Shakespearean play performed until this week. But when the School of Theatre brought a production of Romeo & Juliet to the lawn right outside our offices in the Hintz Family Alumni Center, I definitely wanted to check it out.
So I went to opening night on Tuesday—and I went back to see the second performance the next night. I might well have considered going to the closing performance Thursday, except that we got the now-famous Earliest Snowstorm in State College History and the finale was canceled.
Undergraduate students Gilbert L. Bailey II and Leah Mueller played the lead roles in the production.
Romeo & Juliet was, in a word, terrific. The cast—made up entirely of undergrad and grad students—was first-rate, and the costuming and set design were pretty cool too. This was the School of Theatre’s first-ever outdoor production at University Park, and you can see from the photos that this was no small-scale effort—they went all out. We’ve been watching for the past couple of weeks as the crew re-landscaped the area directly below our magazine offices, constructed a stage, installed bushes and trellises, rigged up lights and sound, and stashed costumes and props in various rooms on our first floor.
I’m serious when I say I had never seen Romeo & Juliet. Going into the first performance, here’s everything I knew about the play: Boy and girl come from feuding families, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl can’t be together because their families don’t get along, boy and girl kill themselves over it.
At the masquerade ball hosted by Lord and Lady Capulet, Romeo and Juliet meet and fall in love.
So, on the first night, I had a little trouble figuring out who was who and exactly what was taking place at any given moment. (This is not the fault of the cast or crew—instead you can blame whoever at my high school said I could take a double-math track and skip literature.)
But I certainly got the gist of the story, and I was blown away by the authenticity and passion of the performances. I was even more impressed when I read the program later and learned that the leads were played by undergrads: Romeo was played by Gilbert L. Bailey II, a senior in the musical theatre program, and the role of Juliet was played by Leah Muller, a sophomore music education major. (A sophomore. And not even a theatre major!)
Tybalt (MFA acting student Nathan James) challenges Romeo to a duel.
Another one who stood out for me was Derek Biddle, a senior musical theatre major, who played the role of Lord Capulet—Juliet’s father—with great intensity.
When he tells his daughter he has arranged for her to marry Count Paris, and she resists—since, after all, she has already secretly married Romeo—Lord Capulet’s fury at her lack of respect is so authentic. He bellows at her, he slaps her, she cowers. It’s enough to give you shivers.
And, of course, I loved the famous “balcony scene,” which was adapted in this case to show Juliet in an alumni center window (Lori Shontz’s office window, actually), talking romantically with Romeo as he clung to the trellis next to the window.
Juliet discovers that Romeo has taken his own life.
It was fun to see the production two nights in a row—I got even more out of it the second time. Now I can tell you all about the street brawl, the masquerade ball at the Capulet home, the duel in which Benvolio is killed, the duel after that in which Tybalt is killed, all that stuff. But you probably knew all that anyway. Unlike me, you probably studied Shakespeare at one time or another.
Despite temperatures in the 40s, the show attracted an audience of about 1,400 over the two nights of its run; the alumni center lawn was just packed with people sitting in folding chairs and on blankets. And, if you missed it, you can watch it on the Web—thanks to a partnership with the World Campus and the College of Information Sciences and Technology.
Tina Hay, editor
Snow Changes Football Parking
Those of you coming up for the Homecoming football game against Minnesota tomorrow, be prepared: Thanks to the earliest snowfall in Centre County history, grass parking lots are closed, and no tailgates or tents will be permitted in paved lots.
There’s a link on Penn State Live with the details, but in case that’s not working, here’s the information in full from the press release:
“Due to the volume of snow already on the ground at University Park, combined with the forecast of potentially significant snowfall tonight (Oct. 16), all grass lots have been closed for Saturday’s football game against Minnesota. Only paved lots will be open for parking, and there will be no tents or tailgating permitted in any of the lots. Those bringing RVs to the game may be redirected to other locations for parking.
“Roughly 20,000 parking spaces are being lost because of the weather conditions. Football fans are being urged to carpool, and those who can walk to the stadium – particularly students – should do so.
“Penn State is working to partner with area businesses to have football patrons park in their lots and be shuttled to Beaver Stadium. Shuttle service to the game will be provided to those parking in the following parking lots: Wal-Mart, Benner Pike; Sam’s Club; Chem Cut; Target; Lowe’s; Home Depot; the former Corning plant on East College Avenue; and the Big Lots Plaza. More information on this will be posted as additional community parking locations are identified.
“The grass lots are closed mainly for safety reasons. The ground is not yet frozen, and the amount of slushy snow that has fallen has turned the lots muddy under the snow. There already is close to a half-foot of snow on these lots, with up to an additional half foot or so being forecast for overnight, making the lots impassable and treacherous to motor vehicle traffic.
“All ADA parking will be located in the East Parking Deck on Bigler Road. This parking deck will be open only to those with ADA parking permits, and it will be serviced by the ADA shuttle.
“Conditions inside the stadium also will be less than ideal. With additional snow forecast overnight, seats and walkways will be snow-covered and slippery. Those attending the game should dress warmly, with a waterproof outer layer of clothing, and wear warm footwear with good traction.
“More information about specific traffic and parking plans will be posted throughout the day, so those planning to come to the University Park campus for Homecoming activities and the football game should check back often. The Homecoming Parade will be held as scheduled.”
Lori Shontz, senior editor
An Alum Writes on the Balloon Boy Saga
I’m assuming that, like me, some of you were captivated yesterday by the saga of what we in the office were calling “balloon boy.” Thank goodness 6-year-old Falcon Heene was found safe, although obviously there are still some questions to be answered.
Ann Gerhart ’77 captured the mood of the afternoon nicely in this piece for The Washington Post.
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Great Shot of Today’s Snow
Photo of the Day honors have to go to Andy Colwell, a Penn State journalism major who also is a photography intern in the University’s Public Information office. He went out in the elements with his camera and produced a slide show of people coping with the earliest recorded snowfall in State College history. Of all of the images he took, this one is by far my favorite. (Click on it to see it bigger.)
Tina Hay, editor
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