Blue White Illustrated

STILL IN THE GAME Undeterred by injury, Michael Mauti takes aim at pro career | M ichael Mauti still doesn't want to talk specifics. Not now. Maybe not ever. The senior linebacker suffered a left knee injury when running back D'Angelo Roberts slammed into him in the first quarter of the Nittany Lions' 45-22 victory over Indiana on Nov. 17. When he spoke to reporters a week later, moments after a thrilling 24-21 overtime win against Wisconsin in which his teammates wore "42" decals on their helmets in his honor, Mauti declined to say what the diagnosis had been. Now it's January – a full two months after his college career was cut short – and the former Nittany Lion still isn't interested in discussing the extent of his injury. So he doesn't. Rather than dwelling on the past – a personal history that now includes two torn anterior cruciate ligaments and this latest unspecified knee injury – Mauti is wholly invested in his future. And he's confident that the National Football League will figure into it somehow. "Right now [I'm] just focusing on getting healthy, and I know when I'm healthy I can play at a high level. I've proven I can do that," he said. "No one ever really talked about the fact that I was coming off an injury this year because there was so much other stuff going on. But it's a good thing for me that I know I can come back and play at a high level. I'm just going to do that again. "There are no other options really. I'm just training myself as hard as I can to be ready for the next level. I'm just looking for an opportunity to play and, wherever that is – whoever gives me that opportunity – I think they know what kind of player they're going to get. I'm just going to be playing for a new team." Mauti has returned home to Louisiana to prepare for that next step. He is looking ahead to the NFL Combine in February, Penn State's Pro Day in March and individual meetings with NFL teams. All the while, he is working to rehabilitate the injured knee, aiming for a return to the form he displayed in claiming first-team All-Big Ten honors this past season. He has done this sort of thing before. After his two previous knee injuries at Penn State, the 6-foot-2, 232-pound linebacker threw himself into his rehab and returned to the field a better player than he was before. He sees his latest injury as just another obstacle to overcome. "It's really just like anything else or any other time I've been through [a knee injury]," he said. "There's that very small amount of time where you question it and you're saying, 'Why me?' You're doubting yourself and asking questions. "But that's something I've been able to look back on and, given my experience, I know what I can do and I know how hard I can work to overcome adversity. There's really no question what I can do. It's just a matter of doing it again. I'm back on the horse now and I've made that decision. I made it pretty quickly and now I'm just going full drive now." To fully engage, however, Mauti had to let go. His final year on campus had been chaotic, beginning with Joe Paterno's dismissal, Bill O'Brien's arrival, the NCAA's sanctions and the surge of defections that followed. Mauti found himself so heavily invested in the journey that its conclusion was hard to accept. "Really hard," he said. "The only way I can explain it is that we held on so hard and we fought so hard, it was almost like you're gripping onto a baseball bat as hard as you can, sitting there for an hour and gripping it as hard as you can. Then, you try to let go and your hands are stuck, even when you let go. Your hands are still stuck in fists. "It was hard trying to let go because that's all we knew. For months we gripped as hard as we could and really, just trying to recalibrate and trying to spread out our hands, it was hard." When the season ended, the sense of purpose that animated his conversations with teammates and coaches seemed to fade. The graduating players would still hang out at the Lasch Building, but when they reflected on their accomplishments, the realization that their college careers were over soon followed. Said Mauti, "We went so hard every day for months and completely sold out everything we had. We were just completely dry. Emotionally, physically, we put every ounce into it. We emptied

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