TRUE BLUE
Akeel Lynch believed in PSU
from the start. Now it's time to make
some believers of his own
A
keel Lynch wasn't sure what to make of the
present. His mom had been traveling out of the
country – somewhere called Erie, Pa., south of
their home in Toronto – and she had brought
him back a souvenir: a Penn State jacket.
Lynch was 7, and he didn't know what Penn
State was until his mom explained: It's a bigtime football program. So that was cool. Plus,
the jacket was blue – his favorite color. Said his mom,
Donna McCoy: "Oh, he loved that pretty color blue."
Lynch was an athletic kid, and he was growing up
without his father, who had just died suddenly. McCoy
worked to find a sport for him.
"He wanted to play soccer, so I put him in soccer," she
said. "He didn't like it. I put him in kickboxing, and he
dominated. Then one day he said, 'Mom, you know that
jacket from the football school? I think I want to play
football.' So I put him in football. I knew nothing about
football. At that time."
That included where to play the game. McCoy had to
Google "football" and "Ontario" to find options, and the
closest one turned out to be a 30-minute drive – in good
traffic. She drove her son to the field, and he came home
with a Grizzlies uniform, which he wore home. "And then
he was looking in the mirror," she said, laughing. "He
had never played football in his life. But he picked it up
so fast."
From that unlikely beginning, Lynch developed into a
