Decision to attend PSU was turning point for Millen
2 0 1 9 K I C K O F F S P E C I A L
Matt Millen is rarely asked about his
family, and he likes it that way but he
doesn't hesitate to talk about them when
questioned. He is proud of his half-Irish,
half-Czechoslovakian heritage, his fa-
ther and mother, 10 siblings, his wife,
four children and their spouses and his
six grandchildren.
It was a spartan beginning in Hok-
endauqua, Pa., near Allentown and
Bethlehem. Matt was the sixth of Harry
and Elizabeth Millen's 11 children. They
all lived in a two-bedroom house that
didn't have a bathroom until he was 11
years old.
"I took my first shower in eighth
grade over at the old high school,"
Millen said. "Dad didn't allow us to use
the shower. When they finally con-
nected up the sewer to our house, the
boys still had to use the outhouse. I
never understood why, but it's all true.
We lived in the same house all the time I
was growing up. My mom and dad died
there."
During his senior year at Whitehall
High School, he was o=ered football
scholarships by Penn State, Colorado,
Ohio State and Michigan, among others.
Matt wanted to go to Colorado. Harry
Millen nixed that, er
the season was over, I went to the dork
dining room all the time because there
were fewer people there and you could
eat a lot more.
"It turned out that little Patty Spisak
would go there, too, and that's how I
met her. We'd have lunch and dinner
every day. I asked her to go out, I think
to see 'The Sound of Music,' and that
was it. We decided to get married when
I was a junior and she was a sopho-
more. We said, 'We'll wait until we're
done and get married.' As soon as she
graduated, we got married in Tompkins
Lake. It was my rookie year [in the
NFL]."
Matt's immediate family is now up to
20. He and Pat have four children.
Matthew, 37, is a Princeton graduate
and an attorney and pastor in the Leigh
Valley with four children. "He may be
the only honest attorney in the country,"
his father joked.
Marcus, 34, played football for Army
and earned an MBA from Harvard. He
saw combat in Afghanistan and is now a
major and an instructor at West Point,
with three children of his own. "Marcus
is one of those people who can be any-
thing he wants to be," Matt said.
Michalyn, 31, graduated from Penn
State in 2010 and is married to Colin
Mooney, Army's leading rusher in 2008
who also played two seasons for the
Tennessee Titans. They have three chil-
dren, including twins born in late May.
"Colin is getting ready to go to medical
school," Matt said. "So they moved in
with us until he
