John Hook
-
Hook: How PA Stacks Up Nationally in High School Sports
—
by
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) is the organization in our country that writes the playing rules for most high school sports. It consists of 51 state associations, one for every state plus the District of Columbia, and almost 20,000 high schools. It also conducts and publishes research on high school sports,…
-
Hook: The Protect College Sports Act Is a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ Card for NCAA and Its Members
—
by
President Ronald Reagan was fond of saying that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Which is a line of thinking that I’ve found I agree with over the years. Government does acceptably well with most of the big things they’ve taken on…
-
Hook: The End of Summer and the Start of a New Era
in Columns—
by
Labor Day has come and gone, meaning summer is now unofficially over. But that unofficial line of demarcation of summer – Memorial Day to Labor Day – has lost the meaning it once had. Both Penn State classes and the local school districts start before Labor Day. And although Penn State’s spring semester ends before…
-
Hook: Weather Wonders and School Stress
—
by
Six days a week, my wife and I like to get out for a walk around the neighborhood. We skip Sunday – a day of rest and all – but otherwise we try for 3 miles a day. We have a standard set of “courses” we use for our walks, but depending on weather we’ll…
-
Hook: Keeping the ‘Penn’ in Penn State Athletics
—
by
We Are… Pennsylvania! OK, OK, I know, that’s not how we roll. Of course our iconic cheer is We Are… Penn State! And we’re soon going to have the chance to get back in that We Are cheering spirit. In less than three weeks Penn State’s football team will be on the field against Marshall…
-
Hook: Why Soccer Can Be a Long-Term Revenue Growth Opportunity for Penn State
—
by
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the last few years, you are eminently aware of one thing here in Happy Valley: Penn State’s athletic department wants your money! From sponsorships to donations to tickets to fees and beyond, it seems like everything associated with Penn State sports is now monetized. Why, even our beloved…
-
Hook: Reflections on an Intriguing and Expensive World Cup
—
by
According to media reports, the FIFA World Cup final is the most-watched sporting event in the world, and although as I write this the viewership numbers have not been released for this past Sunday’s final match between Spain and Argentina, the belief is more than 1.5 billion people on the planet likely watched. Now, many…
-
Hook: A Welcoming Education at Penn State’s Breazeale Nuclear Reactor
—
by
When I arrived at Penn State in the fall of 1977 as a 17-year-old – what is now referred to as a “first-year student” – I moved into Beam Hall in the North Halls dorm area. North Halls was, and is, the smallest dorm area on campus, and at the time it was the primary…
-
Hook: A Belated Spring Cleaning to Clear Out Column Ideas
—
by
In honor of the last day of spring passing by, I’m going to do a little belated spring cleaning and clear out a few column ideas that are interesting to me, but don’t have enough “meat on the bone,” as it were, to fill out a full 1,000-word column by themselves. Here goes… * *…
-
Hook: Maybe a Big Ten-SEC Super League Would Be Best for Everyone
—
by
If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention to sports news lately – outside of the current NBA and NHL Finals, that is – you’ve heard that everybody has an opinion on college athletics. The president, Congress, coaches, athletic directors and all sorts of media members have weighed in on the current state…