Freelance sportswriting being what it is in the 21st Century, I have worked for over 30 outlets since my last full-time gig in 2008 – and hope to add to that total before they pry my laptop from my cold, dead fingers.
One of those outlets was ESPN.com, or at least a weird little high school-oriented offshoot of the site called ESPN Rise (RIP). And that brought me to the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville, Pa., one week in 2008 to embed with the Gateway High School football team in the run-up to its Senior Night game against McKeesport.
The piece can no longer be found on the Internet – just as well – but I do remember snippets from that week.
I remember how Dorian Bell, the Ohio State-bound linebacker who was the Gators’ best player, was introduced by the school’s public-address announcer before the game as a guy who would be starting the following year for the Buckeyes. (Spoiler alert: He spent two years in Columbus – one as a redshirt, one as a reserve – then finished out his career at Duquesne.)
I remember how Rob Kalkstein, the cerebral quarterback, sat quietly as music blared in the home locker room before kickoff and following the game made a self-deprecating comment about a tackle he was forced to make after throwing a fourth-quarter interception. (Kalkstein, no surprise, went on to Carnegie Mellon, and now works in finance.)
I remember how the Gators built a sizable lead and then fended off McKeesport at the end, with defensive tackle Chris Lammie – a guy who had lost his dad to an accidental overdose a few years earlier – making the game-clinching sack.
Then there was head coach Terry Smith. As one of his assistants addressed the players beforehand, Smith thought it would be a fine idea to pick up a framed rendering of the school’s crest, lift it overhead and pace wordlessly about the locker room.
Seemed odd at the time, but it seems pertinent now, as Smith again marches amid the mayhem.
He was elevated from associate head coach to interim boss at Penn State after James Franklin’s firing on Oct. 12. It is the first time Smith has led a program since he ended his 11-year run as the coach at Gateway, his alma mater, in 2012 – a stint that saw him go 101-30. Two years later Franklin brought him on as part of his first staff at PSU, where Smith had played wide receiver from 1988-91. He’s been in Happy Valley ever since.
“We all failed Coach Franklin,” he told reporters shortly after he assumed his new position. “That’s why he’s not here.”
He noted that Franklin was responsible for assembling the staff and roster, that there was “a sense of loyalty to him.” But it had all fallen apart in Franklin’s final weeks on the job. Ranked second in preseason polls, the Lions had underwhelmed while beating three overmatched opponents to start the season, then fell in double overtime at home to then-No. 6 Oregon.
That was followed by a shocking road loss to previously winless UCLA. And one week later – in what was Franklin’s final game – PSU dropped a one-point decision to Northwestern.
Enter Smith.
“It’s my job for us to be where our feet are, be grounded right here, and be able to represent Penn State in a proud fashion,” he told reporters on Oct. 13.
He promised that the team would play hard, that his players would be focused. But the losses of first-round draft picks Tyler Warren and Abdul Carter from last year’s team have been glaring, and several veterans have underperformed. That includes quarterback Drew Allar, who was lost for the season with a leg injury against Northwestern.
As a result untried backup Ethan Grunkemeyer was Smith’s starting QB in his first game, last Saturday at Iowa. So while the Lions did in fact play hard, they were hamstrung. Their best weapon was running back Kaytron Allen, who rushed for 145 yards against the Hawkeyes. (And Allen’s 28 carries were a notable strategic change. He had alternated with Nick Singleton his entire career. But Singleton has been surprisingly ineffective this fall, and carried just six times last weekend.)
In all PSU managed just 266 yards, and on defense allowed Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski to squirm free for a career-high 130 yards on the ground. The result was another one-point loss, 25-24.
That’s four straight defeats, and there is no relief in sight. Penn State, idle this Saturday, next faces top-ranked Ohio State on the road. Then No. 2 Indiana visits, before PSU closes out its regular season with a visit to Michigan State, a home date against Nebraska and a road game against Rutgers.
It’s worth noting that on their way into Kinnick Stadium last Saturday, the Lions were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with a single word: “IF.” That’s big news for fans of the long-ago poet Rudyard Kipling (“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you …”), but according to Smith the meaning behind the Lions’ leisurewear went beyond that.
“It’s a belief,” he told reporters after the game. “It’s infinite possibilities. It’s, if we focus, if we play harder, if we buy into each other … it means a lot of different things. And it gave us this endless, limitless, possibilities of the outcome, right?”
My buddy Mike Poorman, writing for Statecollege.com, suggested the letters be reversed to form the abbreviation “FI,” for “Fuck it.” Then Poorman offered as evidence something Allen told him: “It was basically like if you mess up, just fuck it. It happens. You got to get the next play. Six-second mentality. Do what you got to do.”
A bowl berth is still a mathematical possibility, but the immediate goal is stability – to find a way to halt this downward spiral. And to that end Terry Smith continues to march amid the mayhem, hoping to provide direction. Hoping that everyone will not only be where their feet are, but discover a way to climb out of this crevasse.