Blue White Illustrated

F ormer Penn State All-Americans LaVar Arrington, Paul Posluszny and Steve Wisniewski have been selected as part of the national ballot for the College Foot- ball Hall of Fame Class of 2022. A total of 78 players and seven coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision are on the National Football Foundation's 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. The trio of stand- outs have an oppor- tunity to join 19 former Nittany Lion players and ,ve Penn State coaches who have been inducted into the hall. Also on the Hall of Fame ballot is for- mer Nittany Lion great Glenn Killinger, who is among the candidates for the di- visional coach Class of 2022. Killinger was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1966. Penn State is one of only seven FBS schools to have the maximum number of nominees (three) make the 2022 national ballot. Wisniewski has been on the bal- lot every year since 2010. Arrington, an outside linebacker for the Nittany Lions, was a ,rst-team All- American in 1998 and '99. A native of Aliquippa, Pa., he was selected a ,rst- team honoree by The Sporting News in 1998 and by The Associated Press, American Football Coaches Association, Football Writers Association of America, Walter Camp Football Foundation, Sporting News and The Football News in 1999. In 1999, he was selected winner of the Butkus Award as the nation's top line- backer and Chuck Bednarik Award as the country's top defensive player. Posluszny, an outside linebacker from Butler, Pa., was a ,rst-team All-Ameri- can in 2005 and '06. He also became only the second two-time winner of the Chuck Bednarik Award, presented to the nation's top defensive player, in 2006. In 2005, he won the Butkus Award, pre- sented to the nation's top linebacker, and he was a ,nalist for the 2006 honor. A starter in the last 37 games of his ca- reer, Posluszny became the ,rst Nittany Lion to lead the team in tackles three times and to post three 100-tackle sea- sons, recording 116 in 2006. He leI Penn State as the school's all-time leading tackler with 372 career stops. Wisniewski was a three-year starter at guard for the Nittany Lions and went on to become an All-Pro lineman in the NFL. The Houston native was one of two sophomores to start on the 1986 na- tional championship team, and he opened holes for two ,rst-team All- America running backs, D.J. Dozier (1986) and Blair Thomas (1987). One of just four Penn State o+ensive linemen to earn a pair of ,rst-team All-America honors, he was recognized in 1988 by the American Football Coaches and re- peated All-America accolades from The Sporting News. A 1988 team captain, Wisniewski is one of only two o+ensive linemen to earn Penn State's team MVP honor since its creation in 1978. Killinger, a Harrisburg, Pa., native, was a Walter Camp All-American at quarter- back for the Nittany Lions in 1921. He coached at Dickinson (1922), Rensselaer (1927-32), Moravian (1933) and West Chester (1934-41, 1945-59). Killinger is the winningest coach in West Chester history and is a member of the Pennsyl- vania Sports Hall of Fame. He died in 1988. The announcement of the 2022 College Football Hall of Fame class will be made early next year. The class will be oLcially inducted during the 64th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 6, 2022. ■ ball and that the football landscape will be more competitive. Which is why our competitors are continuing to make mas- sive investments in their football infra- structures. Six Big Ten schools have invested $90 million to $270 million in their football facilities in the past 18 months, and this number is much larger if you look at it nationally. Schools are making these investments because their leadership understands that their football programs need it to compete. "This is a complex issue. The risk of cutting sports, for example, comes from those universities that are unable to sus- tain the revenue that can pay for nonrev- enue sports. By investing in the revenue- producing sports, you protect other sports that rely on that income and en- hance the entire university. If you wait, you are going to be leI behind. Over 15 universities have spent close to $100 mil- lion on their football facilities in the past year. It's a delicate balance. You have to make the investment that puts a compet- itive product out there and fans in the stadium that brings in revenue. This is an issue that every university is facing, and our competitors are making signi,cant moves." Short continues to emphasize that the Penn State athletic department budget is independent of the broader university. "It's not like that at a lot of schools," he said. "We spend in athletics what we bring in. It's not a choice of investing in athletics or investing in other university priorities like research and student life. This is not a tradeo+ with other priorities of the university. We raise the revenue that we spend." A few trustees who voted against the Lasch projects wanted to wait another year until the money had been raised or the pandemic-driven concerns of the >> Penn State quartet on College Hall of Fame ballot WISNIEWSKI

• Cover