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past 18 months had dissipated. Anthony Lubrano, who helped fund the baseball stadium, and Jay Paterno were the most vocal. "We have students sleeping in the [Het- zel Union Building] at night, we have stu- dents who are hungry," Paterno told his fellow trustees. "We battle to make Penn State more a+ordable. We have a moral obligation to do that. How do we look the people we are asking to make sacri,ces in the eye and then borrow and spend this money?" Short maintains that the investments in football will help students and the university at large. "Ohio State has out- spent Penn State by close to $400 mil- lion in the last 10 years and Michigan by $250 million," he said during the Febru- ary board meeting. Paterno said Penn State spent $150 million in the same time frame. "We been fortunate enough to have coaches who have been able to do more with less, but eventually something has to give," Short said in our telephone call. "And if we want to compete, we have to be willing to make those investments." Short cites an example in recruiting that shows the necessity of the investment. "If Ohio State beats Penn State on four recruits a year, at the end of ,ve years that's 20 players," he said. "Twenty players in one direction or the other are the di+erence between being in the College Football Playo+ with all the ancillary bene,ts to the university and an economic downturn in central Pennsyl- vania because Penn State hasn't made a bowl game in three years. "If we can't put our coaches, our sta+s and our players in the best possible posi- tion to compete, we can't expect them to be successful. Football is not what drives the university. Football is the marketing arm of the university. All the football pro- gram does and athletics does is draw at- tention to the university so the people can see all the great things Penn State has to o+er in our academics. We're one of the top engineering, research and communi- cation schools in the country, and Smeal is one of the top business schools in the world. We have a lot of academic pro- grams that di+erentiate us that should make all Penn Staters proud. "People have to understand that the fans come ,rst. It's the fans who pay all those bills. It's the fans who not only sup- port the university ,nancially but emo- tionally and physically. It's a delicate balance. You have to make the investment and put a product out there that is going to put fans in the stadium." Another athletic department project – a study of Beaver Stadium's future by the Populous design ,rm – was not known by Short during the February trustees meet- ing, and he didn't know all the details in early June. However, he said it is needed. "The stadium has to be addressed," he said. "It's a part of the strategic invest- ment plan in athletics and the broader university. It's a challenge, and we have to work on it." Short uses a simple analogy to explain LINEBACKER U Short was a first- team All-American as a senior in 1999 before being cho- sen in the fourth round of the NFL Draft by the New York Giants. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics

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