Blue White Illustrated

LAST WORD M A T T L I N G E R M A N | L I N G E R M A N M A T T H E W @ G M A I L . C O M hen my phone buzzed to wake me early on March 12, I felt like a third-grader who had just woken up to light snowfall. You know, the kind of snow that isn't enough to cancel school, but with another storm coming, you held out on getting out of bed until the last possible minute – only for school to finally be canceled after you're too awake to go back to sleep. The only difference for me was that, unlike most third-graders, I didn't want to hear of a cancellation. For me and my two fellow Daily Collegian basketball writers, the cancellation we were wait- ing for wasn't school – it was the Big Ten tournament. Penn State was set to play that night, and although the Nit- tany Lions finished the regular season on a sour note, we thought there was a real chance we would be covering them deep into the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised when I scanned Twitter and found that no such cancellation had been announced, and that even though there would be no fans in attendance, our plans to drive eight hours to Indianapolis were still on. But at the same time, as the four of us crammed into our photographer's Mini Cooper, there was an air of inevitability surrounding us. The NBA had post- poned games indefinitely the night be- fore, and my phone was constantly vibrating with ominous news updates about the quick spread of this pandemic virus. We knew we were never going to get to Indy. But we set out anyway. The news came about two-and-a-half hours into our trek. We were 15 miles from the Pennsylvania-Ohio border when my colleague matter-of-factly said from the backseat, "Tournament canceled." I would have laughed if the reasoning behind us needing to turn around wasn't so dire. News that the NCAA tournament had also been canceled came the next day, and the gravity of my disappointment began to hit me. For one, there are things I would have rather done than sit through a five-hour car ride that had no destination. All told, that week I spent about a dozen unnecessary hours driving places. But that's a pretty minor complaint, all things considered. What was more bitter for me was los- ing out on this final experience. As a senior graduating in May who isn't going to be pursuing a career in sports writing for the time being, this was my coup de grâce for covering sports events. I've been very lucky to have covered a bunch of sports during my four years at The Daily Collegian, including women's soccer, men's hockey and football. But basketball was always my favorite to write about, and traveling to cover an NCAA tournament was a journalistic dream of mine. Plus, the Big Ten tour- nament, although I had only been to the 2019 edition in Chicago, was my fa- vorite event to cover for a number of reasons. One sticks out the most. The vast majority of the time, when covering Penn State during the regular season, postgame media access consists of brief press conferences from the op- posing coach, Patrick Chambers and one Nittany Lion – perhaps two, if something especially noteworthy hap- pened that night. But the Big Ten tournament offered college sportswriters' holy grail: locker room access. I might sound dramatic, but the difference between interviewing players in a press conference setting and sitting at their locker stall is stark. Imagine the raw emotion, the spirited nature of athletes sitting with their teammates after postseason games. It's not just the prospect of getting impact- ful quotes, it's getting the chance to truly understand what happened on the court and why. That access was enough to make a good story great. And this team was full of great stories. When I think of this team's great sto- ries, I think of Lamar Stevens. I remem- ber the way he symbolized a new era of hope in 2016 as a teenager from Philadelphia. He wasn't only a founda- tional piece – he was the foundation upon which this age of success has been built and on which it will hopefully be sustained. He made the decision to re- turn and did everything that was asked of him. But because of something out of his or anybody else's control, his great story is left unfinished. Seven points shy of the all-time Penn State scoring record – he probably would have gotten that in the first half of the Lions' Big Ten tournament opener. But how many points shy was he of leading his team to the second weekend of the NCAA tourney? Of de- finitively putting Penn State basketball on the map and showing that the Lions aren't a one-trick pony that will return to mediocrity after he leaves? The real implications of these times are more far-reaching than we can imagine right now. There are the obvious ones that must be mentioned, such as the loss of life and toll on the mental health and financial stability of millions. But I also think about people who lost immaterial things, like Lamar Stevens and thou- sands of other senior athletes who saw their collegiate careers end so abruptly. In the grand scheme of things, my grievances are miniscule. But, selfishly, I'll always wonder what final story I might have gotten to tell, too. ■ One final story W

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