Penn State football Coach James Franklin was a special guest speaker near the start of the university’s Board of Trustees meeting Friday afternoon at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.
After the leaders of the three Penn State student government organizations — Council of Commonwealth Student Governments, Graduate and Professional Student Association and University Park Undergraduate Association — delivered remarks about their work over the past year and what lies ahead, a brief highlight video about Penn State’s Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl run played before board chair Ira Lubert turned the podium over to Franklin.
Franklin looked back on the past season’s successes, discussed his staff’s commitment to player development on and off the field, and talked about sustaining success in the year’s ahead.
His full remarks follow:
I don’t know how you follow those students that just spoke. Couldn’t have been more impressive, congratulations. I am going to try to make the first half of this presentation a little bit better than the first halves of our games.
We’re honored to be here today, extremely proud to represent our players and our staff. I would make the argument the best staff in college football because they’re aligned at doing it the right way, doing it for the right reasons.
It is not just about winning for us. If it was just about winning we would go coach in the NFL. It is about the development of the entire student athlete. Couldn’t be more proud of our staff. Our accomplishments this season, they were not just a result of one person or one player or one position but rather the collective efforts of each individual on this team, each individual within our university and our entire Penn State community. Our success this season is your success. We’re a direct reflection of everybody within this room, everyone on this campus and everyone within the state. Thank you for the support, thank you for the patience.
The commitment to excellence in our athletic department and specifically to Penn State football, specifically I would like to thank [Penn State President] Dr. [Eric] Barron, I would like to thank [athletic director] Sandy Barbour for their commitment to us. Sandy and Dr. Barron have interacted with our student-athletes countless times at practice, in meetings. Our student-athletes understand that we’re just a small piece of this Penn State University, a special place we all hold dear, but they also understand they have a significant role. I want to thank president Barron for reinforcing that and Sandy for being so supportive.
After being hired I promised to do everything possible to restore Penn State football to the national prominence it has known in the past and to do so with the highest academic standards and social responsibility. I hope you guys have seen that. We have done it time and time again. We have suspended our best players for first halves for missing class, for what people would consider probably the biggest game of the year. We have reinforced these things over and over.
I think a lot of people think I’m a big fan of social media. I really am not. It is a great way to reinforce all of the positive things that our guys are doing academically. Very, very proud of that.
After a couple of years working through the sanctions I thought we made significant progress this year, some examples of that is being undefeated at home. [I] thought that was very, very important. We don’t do that without the support we got from our students as well as our fans. We also understand the significance of what that does for this community. Big Ten championship, then the Rose Bowl berth.
I have gone all over the country recruiting, doing different speaking engagements, everybody says, ‘Coach, that was the best Rose Bowl I ever have seen in my life.’ I was like ‘Well, could have been better.’
First and foremost, however, I wanted to assure you our mission at Penn State has not changed and will not change. Forge strong relationships with the players, the university, our community. Create tremendous academic experience. Our job is not to send these guys to the NFL, which stands for “not for long.” Our job is to make sure our guys leave as educated men and prepared for life. We want to make a positive impact in our community and want to be able to consistently compete for Big Ten divisional conference championships, conference championships and national championships. We’re a work in progress. Like any other program, we’ll have ups and downs and we’re determined to build on last year, continue to develop young men academically, athletically, socially, spiritually so they become leaders in all their future endeavors.
Our Big Ten championship is something we should all be excited about but we’re equally proud of the success we have had off the field. The last three years we have had over 2,000 hours of community service in our program, back-to-back Academic All American in Tyler Yazujian, 51 student-athletes with a 3.0 or higher each year, 51 or more. [The] 2016 team had 14 graduates playing with 16 different degrees.
I think Saquon Barkley is a perfect example of what we’re doing, he showed up on campus and all he did was embrace everything that we asked him to do. He has over a 3.0 GPA. He is humble, hard-working. He’s appreciative. He is kind. He’s also 5-11, 220 pounds and runs 4.3.
We’re excited about next season. We only had one senior on offense, only three on defense. I do think we’re headed in the right direction.
Again, I want to thank you. Now is the time for us to forge ahead, to take advantage of the momentum, the opportunities that we have for our future. I thank you again for this time in front of the board meeting. I hope that the meeting continues to be positive and productive. I’m honored and humbled to be with you here today, I’m honored, humbled to be your head football coach. Thank you very much.
