Blue White Illustrated

Sept. 11 [home opener] against Ball State." Penn State hasn't played a spring game since 2019, when a crowd estimated at 61,000 filed into Beaver Stadium to watch Sean Clifford complete 11 of 19 passes for 118 yards and lift the Blue over the White, 24-7. Spring practice was scrapped last year due to the pandemic, and with it went the Blue-White Game. This year, the Nittany Lions could wel- come as many as 53,000 fans under state guidelines that went into effect on April 4. The new guidelines, announced by Gov. Tom Wolf in March, allow for crowds of up to 50 percent of capacity at outdoor venues, regardless of the venue's size. A decline in COVID cases nationwide in late winter, coupled with the increas- ing availability of vaccines, has given rise to hopes of a return to relative nor- malcy this summer and fall. If that means Beaver Stadium won't feel cav- ernous and empty as it did in 2020, Penn State players would welcome the change. "It was obviously different, because you're in these big stadiums and it's quiet," Pinegar said. "Some games, there were no fans allowed, some games there were. Even games where they al- lowed fans, 200 people or whatever, it was in a place that seats 100,000 peo- ple, so it's different. That didn't affect the way that I played personally, and I don't think it affected the way our team played. But obviously, if you're running out of the tunnel and there are 100,000 people, it's a different view, a different thing in your head when you run out there. "I think, as a team, no matter what the game was, no matter whether there were few fans or no fans, everybody was ready to play. We have a goal, we have a job to do. Everyone's job is to go out there and win every rep, go out there as a team and win the game. It was a different thing, though. … Having no fans there, it didn't affect the way we played, but there was obviously a different feeling there with not as many people in the stadiums." ■ SOMETHING TO PROVE Hiring Micah Shrewsberry was just the start. Now PSU must give him the resources to succeed thletic director Sandy Barbour took to the Bryce Jordan Center podium on March 30, nearly seven years into her tenure, to introduce her most consequential and visible hire at Penn State. Welcoming Micah Shrews- berry as the newest head coach of the Nittany Lions men's basketball pro- gram, Barbour announced plainly her vision and intention for the belea- guered outfit. Since its integration into the Big Ten, Penn State has been among the least successful programs in the league, but Barbour, university president Eric Barron and the board of trustees have said they are committed to creating "sustained success." "The goal was, is, and always will be for this program to compete success- fully, year in and year out, in the Big Ten and compete for those champi- onships," Barbour said. "The Big Ten is the best conference in all of college men's basketball, and we all know that if we're competing in the Big Ten suc- cessfully, then we'll be a force on the national scene as well." Having made its intentions clear, Penn State's athletic administration can now pick its cliche for how it pro- ceeds from this point on. The rubber meets the road? The proof is in the pudding? When push comes to shove? The reality for Shrewsberry, his staff, and the program they are inheriting, is that follow-through is where Penn State has often fallen short. The Nittany Lions are perennially one of the lowest- funded men's basketball programs in the Big Ten. The avenues for investment are, and will continue to be, plentiful. The competing reality is that, for maybe the first time under this athletic director, university president and board, or any of those preceding them, Penn State has found a leader it has deemed worthy of the investment re- quired to meet its stated goals. "Dr. Barron and I invited Micah to join us, to partner with us, to go on this journey in creating that sustained suc- cess," Barbour said. "We invited him to help us provide them with the condi- tions they require for success, both in the classroom, on the court and in the community, and to provide our com- munity... with a point of pride in our success on the basketball court, and what the program and the young men will do off the court as well." For Shrewsberry, the decision to choose Penn State for his first foray into major-college basketball head coaching was rooted in his faith that the elements necessary for success will be provided to the program. Saying he believes in Penn State's administration, including Barron, Barbour and Lynn Holleran, the assistant director of athletics in charge of men's basketball, Shrewsberry indi- cated that they were atop of his list of "pros" for accepting the position. Another appealing facet of Penn State's athletic program was the suc- cess of its other teams. The women's soccer team just won the Big Ten regu- lar-season title, while the wrestling team crowned four national champi- ons. The overall health of so many of the Nittany Lions' 30 other Division I programs provided Shrewsberry with the confidence that the same bright fu- ture could exist for men's basketball. "If nobody was having success at Penn State then you would have a little bit of a JUDGMENT CALL A

• Cover