Eamon McAdam isn’t like most of the high profile athletes walking around Penn State’s campus.
He’s already affiliated with a professional franchise.
Even the assumed NFL future of Christian Hackenberg isn’t set in stone just yet. Nearly everyone is working towards catching the eye of teams at the professional level. College athletics, for the lucky few, is an audition for the big stage only a few years away.
But McAdam has at least part of that already taken care of. Coming to Penn State a third round draft choice by the New York Islanders he had already impressed plenty of scouts. Where football player waits years to be evaluated, McAdam came to campus with those years already under his belt. A weird combination of his professional career almost accelerating faster than his own life.
In turn he has faced a mountain of expectations. Expectations partially earned and partially the result of a new concept for Penn State fans. The idea that a player could be drafted by a professional team and still be NCAA eligible. By default McAdam was destined for greatness.
But like all of his fellow teammates and fellow athletes on campus McAdam is still trying to prove his worth. A tall order, especially when everyone expects so much so soon.
“Often it’s unfair,” Penn State coach Guy Gadowsky said of young players with such hype. “It takes a while to get used to and it takes a while to overcome. You get into a situation where a lot of players who come to college are given pats on the back for doing good things.”
“And then there are some that come in with very high expectations and that any accolades they get are expected, and there is more focus on when things don’t go well. When they go through things normal freshman go through it’s bad because ‘that wasn’t supposed to happen’ and I think that’s a tough thing. For him he has dealt with it for a long time and he’s handling it very well, but I don’t envy him.”
McAdam went through those freshman pains. He wasn’t always on the right side of his coaching staff and the results and opportunities given showed that in more ways than one. It wasn’t that McAdam didn’t care, but being a college athlete is a difficult life with nearly as many pitfalls and obstacles as positive opportunities. It takes a lot of work and a lot of discipline. Succeeding at the collegiate level is a skill in its own right.
Somewhere though, maybe just thanks to the passage of time, McAdam hit a switch. Last season he made 12 appearances with 11 starts, leading the team with a .910 save percentage and posting a 5-4-1 record with a 3.13 goals-against average. In addition he had six games of 30 saves or more and allowed a lone goal in 31:13 of action at No. 4 UMass Lowell saving 17 shots and starting the next night against No. 4 UMass Lowell giving up just one goal in the program’s first win over a top five team.
From there the bar was set. McAdam still had work left to do, but the potential began to shine. That word, potential, something that has its own long history in his life.
“I was talking to someone, having a long conversation about this the other day. The word that always came up with me was potential,” McAdam said earlier this fall. “And it almost became a very negative word in a sense because it was getting tossed around so much and it was a really heavy word and it kind of weighed on me. Because it was always potential, potential potential. And now that I’ve been coming more into my own I’ve been maturing in more ways than won, it has become a lot lighter of a word and a lot more fun to throw around. Because now I’ve made it this far and there is still potential. So it’s kind of fun and kind of cool to throw around in my mind.”
It shows too. McAdam came to campus this fall finishing third on the team’s physical testing leaderboard. He’s confident and prepared. Ask anyone on the team or nearly anyone in the Pegula Ice Arena and it’s clear to them too.
In turn, McAdam started Penn State’s first game of the season giving up just one goal in a lopsided 6-1 victory. While fellow goalie Matthew Skoff will work between the pipes on Friday for the home opener, McAdam is already slated to play this Saturday against Notre Dame. The feeling slowly shifting from wondering if McAdam will get everything figured out in time to simply waiting to see how far he can take his skills and confidence.
“I feel like I’m strides ahead two years ago and even last year,” He added. “I’m kind of all on a whole new page and I’ve talked to coach and he agrees that I’ve come a long way and matured a lot. All of those things mentally and physically have gotten me to a good place.”
Like everything, McAdam will have to earn his chance to take the next step in his career. Skoff and he will battle for the staring goaltender job with Skoff being a talented prospect in his own right. From the Penn State fan perspective that will only lead to better and better play in net.
But for McAdam it will help him work past potential and on to bigger and better things.
And nobody is happier about that than him.
