It was two Sundays before Christmas, and Penn State junior quarterback Christian Hackenberg was doing a little holiday shopping on the eastern outskirts of State College with his girlfriend Tatum Coffey.
Among their stops that late morning was big box home goods purveyor Bed Bath & Beyond along the Benner Pike, where State’s Sweethearts were hoping to pick up a few things for the Hackenberg brood back home in Virginia.
The store was nearly empty, save for a half-dozen or so customers searching for K-Cup Packs, bath towels, kitchenware and the like.
So Hackenberg and Coffey weren’t all that difficult to pick out.
But let’s be honest: A 6-foot-4 tall, dark and handsome three-season starting college quarterback and an adorable and athletic blonde former PSU lax star would’ve stood out at Macy’s on Herald Square that day as well.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL(YN)
Still, Carolyn Bryant wasn’t so sure that it was Hack when she walked in the store’s front doors.
He was wearing flip-flops and a ball cap, with blue and white shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. And he was talking with two of the other four customers in the store.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that young guy is wearing shorts – it’s not that warm out,’ ” she recalled. “Then he turned around, and I knew it was him.”
Not that Bryant wouldn’t recognize Hackenberg without his No. 14. A State College native who now lives in Bellefonte, she’s been a Penn State football fan since she can literally remember. Her family has held season tickets since 1963, when her late parents Betty and Bill – longtime townies will remember Bill from when he ran Kissinger & Bryant Insurance, located at the corner of Allen and Foster for decades – would take her and brothers Rick (the First Night State College czar) and Jim (the irascible local attorney) to Nittany Lion football games.
Carolyn knows her stuff. She could tell you that Hack has started all 37 games of his Penn State football career. And she would know that his 8,318 passing yards, 685 completions and 48 touchdown passes are all Penn State records.
“Truly, Christian is the only reason I renewed our football tickets” – the tickets the Bryants have had for 52 years – “this season,” she admitted. “We were going to drop them, but we wanted to support him for all he’s done for Penn State and the community.”
As such, she has no problem admitting that on that day in Bed Bath & Beyond she was a stalking sexagenarian. (Google that last word; Carolyn’s not as naughty as you think.)
“I followed Christian around the store a bit, to make sure it was him,” she said, not the least bit sheepish about trailing her favorite Lion. “When he started walking in my direction, I asked if he had a minute to talk.”
Hackenberg said sure. A communications major who’s been in the national spotlight since high school and has faced media scrums and dum-dums by the thousands, he knows his way around the public arena. It’s one of the many things he does best.
Whether it’s a reporter with an iPhone shoved two inches from his stiff upper lip or a grandmother shopping for 600 thread-count sheets, Hackenberg handles them all the same. With poise and polish. He knows the drill, but runs it like it’s fresh every time. He looks ’em in the eye, uses a full supply of sirs and ma’ams, and punctuates his sentences with a little crooked grin that pushes his right cheek up a few centimeters to form a tiny, unintentional but sublimely revealing wink.
Bryant was already smitten. She had seen the dozens of sacks that Hack has endured, the slings and arrows that had come his way, after losses when his receivers ran the wrong routes and his coaches couldn’t decide on a play and his linemen couldn’t block and yet he shouldered all the blame. She appreciated the athlete, she admired the person.
IT’S CURTAINS FOR HACK
So there they stood, in the aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond, by the draperies and the rugs. Appropriate. Hackenberg’s college career is likely to be curtains after the TaxSlayer Bowl. So Bryant told him thank you – for coming to Penn State, staying at Penn State, being a great representative of Penn State. The last one, as much as anything.
“I told him I liked listening to him speak,” she said. “I told him that I enjoy hearing someone go two sentences without an ‘um’ or ‘you know.’ I said his parents should be proud of how they raised him. They brought him up well, with respect and manners.”
It wasn’t a long conversation, but one of which Nicole and Erick Hackenberg can indeed be proud. It confirmed everything – and more — that Bryant had heard and read and seen of their son. It also confirmed everything that Bryant’s own son had told her about the times he, too, ran into Hackenberg on the golf course.
“Christian was incredibly polite,” she says. “He’s a thoughtful, very nice young man.”
She paused and smiled.
“And whoa,” she added, “is he handsome.”
WHAT CHRISTIAN SAYS
A couple of weeks later, Hackenberg was reminded of the encounter and chuckled. As you can imagine, the Saturday in Beaver Stadium matinee idol runs into a lot of fans, so he needed a little prodding to remember Bryant.
“What’s BB&B?” he asked, a typical college-aged male. Then Hackenberg paused and remembered. “Ohhhh…Bed Bath & Beyond.”
That Sunday morning had been a good one of shopping for both Bryant and Hackenberg. For Bryant, the quarterback’s presence confirmed that his gifts were legit and worthy of her wonder.
Even before BB&B, Hackenberg had already found what he was looking for – with and without an OB (Bill O’Brien). Penn State had tested him and molded him and given him opportunities he had never expected – who could have foreseen what was on the horizon?
So for Hackenberg, the trip to BB&B allowed him to hear Bryant’s heartfelt appreciation first-hand.
But that’s not all. Christian made the trip pay. On his way out, he bought a pair of golf ball-finding glasses for Christmas for his dad.
