I’ve been waiting months for Penn State’s Senior Day, to tell you the story of my favorite senior, The Story of Jordan Lucas.
To share four years of knowing and believing in him as a student, an athlete, a person.
Of his personification of what can be good about college athletics and athletics at The Pennsylvania State University.
Of what a great job his parents did raising him, with discipline and manners and dedication and respect and appreciation and sincere application of the opportunity to receive a college education.
Of why you should feel great cheering for him this Saturday just before noon.
Of his heart.
To tell you in words what his actions have already said. Of Lucas making the big switch in his final season, from a free-wheeling and emotional cornerback as an underclassman to a measured and thoughtful leader in his last year, at safety. It was change made for the team, a change at the heart of who Lucas is as a player and how he likes to play, made with plenty of heart.
Of more heart: After his good friend Nyeem Wartman White got injured in the season opener against Temple, Lucas took to wearing No. 5 in honor of White. “He’s my brother,” said Lucas, eventually switching back to his familiar No. 9.
Of his many tattoos. They all tell a story, many of them revolving around family and football. Like the one of the Nittany Lion logo, just above his sternum, at the same level of the one on his Nittany Lion jersey. As he explained in a preseason video: “It symbolizes me wearing that Penn State jersey all the time.”
That’s who Jordan Lucas is.
A LASTING IMPRESSION
Saturday’s game against Michigan was to be his last in Beaver Stadium, his 34th start as a Nittany Lion football player – on the current squad, only Christian Hackenberg has more.
And what a finish it would be. Team captain. Three-year starter, surviving and then thriving and then leading under multiple coordinators and coaches and playing systems and sanctions and depleted rosters. A stat line that looked like this: 180 tackles, 117 of them solo, with 11 tackles for a loss, three caused fumbles, three interceptions, a dozen or so tattoos.
But the finish, at least on the field, has come too soon. His Penn State career ended early into start No. 33, against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., last weekend when he left the game with a season- and college career-ending injury.
As a result, he will be denied that final opportunity to make a tackle or a pick against the Wolverines, to finish his Penn State career on the field of play. There’s reason to believe he’ll be back at it soon, though, healed and healthy pursuing his dream of the NFL. Just not on Saturday.
So, the story doesn’t end as I had imagined. Or, surely, as Lucas himself had hoped. But its moral remains the same. His legacy will be clear. Excellent player, exemplary leader, even better Penn Stater. He was the first recruit to commit to play for Bill O’Brien, making the decision on Jan. 16, 2012, just days before leaving Worcester (Mass.) Academy to enroll early at Temple.
“When they asked me if I wanted to come to Penn State,” he recalled at media day in August, “it was a no-brainer. I took it on the spot, with the help of my father. NFL coach, great university, how could I lose? If my football career didn’t go as planned, I had the university and the best alumni in the world to help me. And if football went as planned, I’d still have the same great opportunities.”
That decision and commitment and faith were tested six months later – not too long after his arrival in University Park — when the NCAA put Penn State under heavy sanctions. Lucas, free to head elsewhere, stayed put.
“That was tough, when we found out we were in the squad room,” he recalled. “People were crying. They weren’t sure what was going to happen, if Penn State was even going to have football. It was a very emotional time for everyone. A lot of people’s futures – kids’ futures and the university’s future – were up in the air.
“I remember looking in the faces of my teammates. We didn’t know what was going to happen. It hit me when I went back to my dorm, all alone, wondering what to do.”
He reached out to his dad, Vincent, back home in White Plains, N.Y. Father had led son to Penn State in January. And he convinced him to stay in June.
“My father said, ‘You committed to Penn State, you came here, tough it out. Football will always be at Penn State,’” Jordan recalled. “Staying here was the best decision, with my father’s help, that I ever made.”
FRESH-FACED FRESHMAN
A few months later, I met Jordan. I had him in class as a freshman that fall. He was the kind of earnest student who asked for extra credit, who stayed after class to walk down The Mall to continue that day’s discussion, who proudly posted Instagrams of prepping for an exam with his football teammate, Malik Golden, and his classmate Haley Kersetter, who became a captain herself in field hockey, and a few others.
Student and athlete. Still, make no bones about it. Freshman year wasn’t easy for Lucas, on or off the field. He toughed it out.
“It was hard. I felt like a newborn deer,” he said. “I had no identity, I didn’t know how to walk. You think you know what it takes to work and succeed, but that didn’t come until between my freshman and sophomore seasons. That’s when I dedicated myself to working hard, going to Holuba, doing all I could to be the kind of player I wanted to be. I didn’t want to sell myself short.”
In the process, he didn’t sell Penn State short either. Lucas started 12 games in 2013, 12 in 2014 and nine in 2015. He played with an exuberant, fun-to-watch style and has taken his role as captain as seriously as he said he would before the season started.
“Being named captain means everything to me,” he said. “I’ve been a leader all my life — baseball, basketball, track, football. That’s who I am. It feels good to lead by example. A captain never abuses authority, never talks down to people, always encourages them. I get a lot of joy out of that.”
Since that first fall, Jordan and I have stayed close, talking much more about class – and now career opportunities, on and off the field — than X’s and O’s. Those conversations still take place along The Mall. Now, he’s mature. Focused. A leader. A man.
AN HISTORIC STORY
A talented and dedicated teacher friend of mine says students don’t usually know how well their teachers know them – or care about them. To me, there will always be the knowledge of that endearing freshman year wobbly-legged doe quality that shaped Jordan. I hope he knows I care. All of that has made witnessing his subsequent successes all the more gratifying.
For me — and for him.
“There’s something very special about Penn State and what we went through. That’s history, that’s history,” he said, repeating it twice. “Now, Penn State football isn’t going anywhere. We stayed together.”
And that’s a story in which Penn State is fortunate that Jordan Lucas had a big hand in writing.
