Blue White Illustrated

the football coaches and staff, with other rooms for meetings, lockers, equipment, training and a new Hall of Fame "devoted to Penn State sports achievements and its stellar athletes of the past." The cost was estimated at $3.5 million. Phil Greenberg, a 1954 graduate, and his wife, Barbara, donated about half a mil- lion dollars, and the new complex was named for them. However, when the fa- cility officially opened with a dedication ceremony on Oct. 11, 1981, it still needed considerably more work. Private contri- butions had fallen far short of the original estimate. Because of inflation and the higher-than-anticipated costs of con- struction, a rejuvenated fundraising cam- paign began. The practice area may have been indoors and heated, but there were many flaws that hindered the players. The roof was not high enough to practice kickoffs and punts. Arched beams that were required in the construction made life precarious for wide receivers and running backs. Spider Caldwell, a team manager from 1983 to '86, laughs when he describes practice sessions. "There was a running track on the surface of the floor with clay un- derneath," he said. "For football, we would roll AstroTurf with the yard lines al- ready painted on it. There were wrestling pads on those beams, but when the receivers ran patterns, they often would smack into a pad on the beam going full speed. It was funny watching the receivers try to avoid the beams while catching passes. If you tried to punt or kick off, the ball would hit the ceiling and come down. So they had the punt receiver just hold the ball near the goal line, count four sec- onds and start running. When the weather was crappy, Joe would frequently send the defense outside to practice while keeping the offense inside, and you can imagine how the defense reacted to that. They would often joke in the locker room by accusing the offense of being soft." Glenn Thiel, then the coach of the men's lacrosse team, told The Daily Col- legian in 1986 that his players were fearful of injuries because of the lighting and also because of how hard the floor was when the AstroTurf was removed and stored after the football season. "Kids did things at three-quarters pace because they were afraid of getting hurt," he said. The practice area was not only used by other sports teams but also by outsiders such as the Blue Band. One year, the sen- ior football banquet was held there, and this writer remembers attending at least one Nittany Lion Club breakfast at Greenberg before a Blue-White Game. Over the next two years, it became ob- vious to the football coaches and others in the athletic department that the Greenberg indoor field was inadequate. In March 1984, planning began for the con- struction of a new facility. The football team's outdoor AstroTurf practice field across from the East Area Locker Room was chosen as the site, but it took two years before construction began on March 17, 1986. A Daily Collegian story in late July described the new structure as being 273 feet by 391 feet by 40 feet high at the eve, with a jogging track encircling the field. "Funding for the project was made possible by revenue from television and bowl game appearances, ticket sales relating to sports events and donations," associate athletic director Herb Schmidt said. The cost was later estimated at $4.6 million. The building was expected to open by Aug. 1, 1986, in time for the start of pre- season practice. But it wasn't ready, and Paterno was angry, as Jim Carlson, sports editor of the Centre Daily Times, reported on Aug. 15. "I'm mad with the whole sit- uation – the way the university has been handling it," Paterno complained. "The problem is, if we get rain on the grass fields, we go over to the astroturf (sic) be- cause we don't want to ruin the [grass] fields," he said. The Greenberg field was no longer able to handle the number of players on his team, Paterno added, forc- ing his team to take buses to practice out- doors on the intramural fields on the western edge of the campus whenever it rained. A few months later, the team was able to

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