Blue White Illustrated

es and recruiting services were seeing him because he put highlight videos on the ESPN high school and community college website Huddle. ���The kids put all their stuff on Huddle,��� Pankey said, ���and going into week five of the season, our offense was on top in Northern California in yards and points scored, so he got on the radar pretty quick. Akron was on him early, Florida Atlantic offered and then Houston came in really hard. He made a visit there and really liked the school, and then Bill called.��� Fisher traveled to Visalia, which is located in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley about 40 miles southeast of Fresno, close to Sequoias National Park and not far from Yosemite National Park. ���I sat down with Charlie and Tyler,��� Pankey said, ���and Charlie put him through the nines, got him up on the [black] boards to see what kind of football smarts he had, and Tyler did a great job up on the board for him.��� Ferguson, who enrolled in January, is a second-semester freshman with four years to compete his three remaining seasons of eligibility. He joins two walk-on prep school quarterbacks who also started classes: Austin Whipple, a 2012 graduate of Pine-Richland High School in suburban Pittsburgh who played last fall for Salisbury School, and D.J. Clark of Worcester (Mass.) Academy, who threw for 77 touchdowns and more than 8,000 yards in his career at Barnstable High School. With Bench also in contention, the competition in spring practice should be intense. Pankey said he will be waiting to see how well Ferguson does with coaching from O���Brien and Fisher. Pankey is well aware of how the two turned Matt McGloin from an erratic thrower into the Big Ten���s leading passer. Pankey said he also respects O���Brien for what he has done for the Penn State football program in the aftermath of the San- Photo courtesy of College of the Sequoias IRV PANKEY ON TYLER FERGUSON ���He���s an intelligent kid. Sometimes he gets a little lazy with his throwing motion, but I think that���s his only weakness.��� dusky scandal and the firing of Joe Paterno. ���I think Bill and his coaches did a great job this [past] year keeping Penn State at the level that it should be,��� Pankey said. ���I commend them for that, and I commend Bill for not taking the money and running to the pros. He���s gotten those kids to buy in and pull together, and I think he brought the community back, for one, by doing the right thing, and, for two, by being competitive when everyone thought they wouldn���t be. It���s not Joe, but Joe was going to leave eventually, and Bill���s a great guy who can carry on the Penn State tradition.��� Pankey is angry because of what Sandusky did to his victims, to Penn State football and to Paterno. ���I don���t think Joe���s accomplishments as a football coach should have been affected by Jerry���s situation,��� he said, adding that he felt the NCAA should not have stripped Paterno of 111 wins. ���Did he make all the right choices because of Jerry���s situation? We���ll never know and we can���t ask him. Joe did a lot of good for a lot of people. ���When I look back at Joe, I thank him for keeping us all to task. He sat down in my living room [in Aberdeen, Md.] and said, ���Mrs. Pankey, Mr. Pankey, I can promise you two things: Your son will get his degree and he will play big-time football. In that order.��� And I thank him for that. He was a standup guy. He was that way with everybody, good, bad or different. Kick you in the butt when you needed it and love you up when you needed loving up. And once you played for him, he had your back for the rest of your life.��� When he was playing for Paterno, Pankey wasn���t always pleased with his coach, primarily because of the way he was moved around, starting at left tackle in 1977, tight end in 1978 and left guard in 1979 when he was a cocaptain. But after his senior year, he was named a second-team All-American despite the Lions��� disappointing 8-4 finish, and the Los Angeles Rams made him their No. 2 draft choice, the 50th overall player picked. The Rams paired him at tackle with Jackie Slater, and they were teammates and pals for 10 years. Slater got the glory, but Pankey was never jealous. When Slater was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001, he made sure he thanked Pankey, ���a guy who brought it every day, a guy who SEE PANKEY PAGE 60

• Cover