The Penn Stater Magazine

Of Barry White, Molly Hatchet, and My Dear Friend, Pat Boland

July 6, 2011 at 11:32 am Lori Shontz 1 comment

Pat Boland is giving a toast at my wedding -- and making the guests crack up -- in this photo by Gene Maylock.

During my 25 years in journalism, I’ve heard a lot of reporters, writers, teachers, academics, and wanna-bes explain how to succeed in the profession. But only one ever got to the heart of the matter by quoting velvet-voiced crooner and consummate ladies’ man Barry White.

That’s longtime State College radio broadcaster—and way more important, my friend—Pat Boland.

Pat ’91 was visiting my journalism class a couple of semesters ago when one of the students asked him a question about interviewing. This was right in Pat’s wheelhouse. After a throwaway reference to former Soul Train host Don Cornelius (you had to be there, but I swear it worked), he told everyone they should consider a line from one of White’s hit songs, “What am I Gonna Do with You Now?”

“Ain’t what you got, babe,” Pat quoted. “It’s how you use it.”

It was vintage Pat, making a connection that no one else would see, one that was equal parts obscure, hilarious, and somehow dead-on accurate.

In this case, he drove home to the students that getting information is only half the battle for any journalist. Knowing how to use the information—deciding whether it requires immediate broadcast, additional context, special sensitivity, sarcasm, some light humor, or some combination thereof—is what distinguishes the best.

That describes Pat, who died Tuesday, nearly two and a half years after he was diagnosed with cancer and about a month after he left the airwaves.

If you listen to ESPN Radio 1450 en route to or from Beaver Stadium on game days, you’ve heard him hosting the pregame or postgame show. I’ll bet you’ve laughed at something he cooked up, whether it was the opposing team trivia segment titled “Know Your Enemy,” his deft handling of sometimes-inebriated fans who called in after the game, or “Older Than Joe,” in which he asked listeners to guess whether things like shopping carts and sliced bread were older than Joe Paterno. (That idea has since been stolen by a lot of people, but Pat did it first.)

He began covering Penn State and State College as a Penn State student, and few knew either community better.

For years, he interviewed every single candidate for office in Centre County, and he was one reporter who could always be counted on to check the police log for the names of athletes and other prominent residents. He essentially taught me how to be a police reporter after the HUB Lawn shooting 15 years ago; I tagged along with him to the magistrate’s office and the courtroom, and I listened in awe as he pulled over to the side of the road and did a smooth, concise live radio report off the top of his head, without writing down a single note.

His vast sports knowledge enabled him to do play-by-play for a variety of sports, including, at one time or another, Penn State baseball, soccer, and volleyball. He tried harder than anyone to turn Penn State–Michigan State into a bona fide rivalry, hyping the Land Grant Trophy on the air and choosing the game’s MVP, whom he dubbed Mr. 1855. (Yes, this sports guy knew his Morrill Act.) One of my fondest memories is a pilgrimage—there’s no other word—we made to the football offices before LGT IV to view the trophy up close and gather color for his pregame report and my advance story. I held Pat’s microphone as he pounded on the trophy and commented on the resonance of the wood. (Or was it particleboard?)

I have no idea how Pat and I met, although it must have been in the press box. He and my now-husband, Matt Herb ’87, were close friends, and I got swept into Pat’s orbit, where the SyFy Saturday night movie was a must-see, a Molly Hatchet guitar pick was a treasured souvenir, and an appropriate way to pass the media timeout at a Penn State basketball game was to sum up the previous four minutes of play by writing a haiku.

Pat was always jotting notes on index cards or Post-Its. His co-workers shared this list, which hung over his desk.

Pat was best man at our wedding, although he preferred to bill himself—not inaccurately—as our wedding planner. When I said I wanted to carry a bouquet that looked as though I’d stopped to pick wildflowers on the way to the church, he rolled his eyes and introduced me to a florist, and he toasted Matt and me, who had just moved to St. Louis, by comparing us to Lewis and Clark.

He slowed down as little as possible during his illness, and a lot of people, I think, didn’t fully understand how sick he was. No wonder. He was co-hosting a morning talk show, and he’d get chemo after the show one day, then be back on the air at 6 a.m. the next. He’d always considered a 10-hour workday a short one, and during football season, he worked six-day weeks. Even during the last week of his life, he was reading a World War I history book and blogging, ending each entry with a shoutout to his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates: Forgotten Bucco of the Day.

I keep thinking about the Barry White song. Ain’t what you got, babe. It’s how you use it. I wish Pat had been given more; he was only 42. But he made the most of every minute he had on this planet. I’ll miss him so much.

Lori Shontz, senior editor

Entry filed under: College of Communications, Penn State alumni. Tags: Barry White, Joe Paterno, Lori Shontz, Matt Herb, Molly Hatchet, Pat Boland, Pittsburgh Pirates.