As the football calendar turns to November the days get shorter, the wind blows colder and we march inevitably closer to putting another year into the history books.
Part of the tradition of college football is Senior Day and for Penn State that day is Saturday.
On football signing day of Feb. 2011, Penn State signed a smaller class but one that brought with it a lot of promise. Those 16 players were joined by a group of walk-ons who would form the entire class. Signing day was but a step into a new life journey and on that day no one could have predicted where that trail would end.
If nothing else, life teaches that the only constant is change.
As the 2011 games started a majority of the freshmen went to work on the scout teams. That’s normal. They learned how to compete and grow on this new level of football. They spent hours in the weight room with John Thomas getting stronger and more confident.
As the team raced to an 8-1 record and a two-game lead in the Big Ten these freshmen, both the ones playing and the ones redshirting, probably felt pretty good about where the their futures were headed.
But the only constant in life is change.
Events that exploded on campus in Nov. 2011 are well documented and need not be recounted here. But it’s important to say it was a tumultuous time for the freshmen who were just starting out on their college journey. The story took turns that not even the greatest screenplay writers in Hollywood could have imagined.
In the months to follow Penn State was sanctioned by the NCAA and the student-athletes were given the opportunity to transfer and play immediately without having to sit out.
Some chose to leave. No one should judge the individual choices made by the young men who left. Who can truly say what each of us would have done given the circumstances, the confusion, and the intense pressures these young men faced in those days?
While we should not judge those who left, we should certainly applaud those who stayed.
In fact, most chose to stay. For an older player the choice to stay was simpler than for a younger player. For a freshman, it was committing to an unknown three or four more years on what seemed to be uncertain foundations. Those who stayed believed in themselves and in their teammates. And then they had to endure a second coaching change.
Yet they remained.
Now, four years later, the last of the 2011 freshmen will walk out the Beaver Stadium tunnel wearing the Blue and White for the last time. Some names you may even recall from when they were recruited and one will likely become the tenth Penn State walk-on to go to the NFL since 2003.
On Saturday, listen for the names Kyle Carter, Ben Kline, Angelo Mangiro, Carl Nassib, Matt Zanellato, and Anthony Zettel. Think of what they endured, their strength standing their ground.
The passage of time and the closing of life’s chapters are all a part of growing up. On Saturday, as you stand and applaud this Senior Class, cheer a little louder for the six men who emerged from the cauldron of the past five seasons.
On this Senior Day for these six men, it is a chapter with lessons of overcoming adversity and adapting to nearly constant change that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. They leave Penn State with an inner strength forged by the trials of the time.
For others, the departures of these men mark the final chapter of connection to another era, the last witnesses to an as-yet unspoken history. They are the last who sat in what would be Joe Paterno’s last team meeting and heard him say:
“There are a lot of guys that have played here before you. They’ve always played hard and always played the way we want Penn State to play. They made sacrifices to make this place something special. Most of you will be here next year after I am done. But what I want you to know; you share something with all the guys who played here before you. No matter what happens we will always—all of us—we will always be teammates. We will always be Penn State football players and teammates—always until the day we die.”
To those six men: As you walk out of that tunnel and into your future, know that all Penn Staters salute you and your journey to this moment. When the season finally ends, you too will join a proud band of teammates that extends decades into the past.
