Blue White Illustrated

March 2013

Penn State Sports Magazine

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CORNER CONTINUED FROM 13 country. As a senior, he totaled 64 receptions for 1,073 yards and 10 touchdowns. His career totals included 190 catches for more than 2,800 yards and 20-plus touchdown catches. ���He���s a lot like Deon [Butler] off the field,��� Mountain View head football coach Lou Sorrentino said, ���just ex- PANKEY CONTINUED FROM 42 made me turn my game up, you see, because I wanted to be the best tackle on the team. If I hadn���t done it, he would have made a hell of a lot more money.��� Pankey said money never motivated him. Although he graduated from Penn State with a degree in hospital administration, he didn���t realize until after retiring from the NFL following the 1992 season that he might want to be a coach and teacher. Paterno hired him as a graduate assistant in 1996, and the next season he was an assistant offensive line coach at Cornell. While playing with the Rams, Pankey used to go hunting around Visalia and in the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains, and he fell in love with the area. When he heard about an opening at College of the Sequoias, he applied and was hired. He also loves to teach, and in 2005 he became the chair of the Physical Education Division. He���s now a tenured professor. The last time Pankey was at Penn State was in 2008 when he went back to see his two sons play for Oregon State in the second game of the year. Keith was a true sophomore, starting at outside linebacker, and Kevin was a true freshman tight end, who was expected to redshirt. Keith played and Kevin didn���t, as Penn State won, 4514, with Pankey cheering for Penn State along the Nittany Lion bench. ���My wife was shocked when I told her I was rooting for Penn State,��� Pankey remembered. ���She said, ���But those are your kids.��� And I said, ���No, this is my school. That is their school.��� ��� Keith went on to start every game in tremely smart, extremely well-rounded, and he knows how to carry himself well. ���On the field, he���s a bit bigger than Deon, but the one thing I���d say about DaeSean is that he really doesn���t have any flaws: great hands, great speed, does all the little things right.��� Sorrentino should know, because he coached Butler in high school. Hamilton also maintains a 4.1 grade point average. If there is a drawback to Penn State���s success at landing 17 players this year, it���s that the team might have only eight to 12 scholarships available to for the Class of 2014. That���s an issue that O���Brien and his staff will have to confront during the next year, before signing day arrives on Feb. 5, 2014. 2008 and was an honorable mention All-Pac-10 choice in 2009, but a ruptured right Achilles tendon before spring practice hindered him throughout the 2010 season. He worked out for the NFL Draft but decided he didn���t want to continue playing football. ���I went up [to Corvallis] for his pro day, and he did pretty good,��� Pankey said, ���but he said he was done with football and I was cool with that. He graduated this past year and he wants to get into some managerial role in his major [geology]. So he���s managing a variety store right now just to get it on his resume.��� Kevin never did get in an Oregon State game because of his grades. He dropped out, played one season for Sequoia and then received a scholarship from New Mexico State. But that didn���t work out either because of academic problems and back surgery, so he returned home. ���Kevin has been working on his degree online,��� Pankey said, ���and he���ll get his degree in international studies this spring. He���s working at a car dealership right now but he wants to live abroad and do something in his field.��� Pankey and his wife, Colleen, who works part-time at Sequoia, also have a daughter, Lilley. ���She���ll graduate this May from Concordia University down in Irvine with a degree in communications,��� Pankey said. ���She wants to be a TV newscaster. ��� Pankey loves his job and doesn���t want to be the head coach, having turned down an offer at Sequoia three years ago before the school hired Robert Dougherty. Nor does Pankey expect to retire any day soon. And he has some last words for Bill O���Brien and Penn State. ���I think I���ll have a couple of offensive linemen here this year that I���ll have [Penn State] come out and look at,��� he said. ���I have a couple of ���grinder��� kids who just might be the type they want.��� Maybe Ferguson is the start of a new Nittany Lions recruiting pipeline. If so, it could earn College of the Sequoias a new nickname: Penn State West.

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