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replies, "I'm fighting, scratching, clawing and kicking, just like every day," and who lovingly calls his wife "Momma Hog" – threw caution to the wind. "It was a thing of pain preservation," McWhorter explained with a sophisticated Southern twang. "We were in a little scrimmage, two of the guys got into it, and they were getting at it pretty good. I thought it would be better if I was a casualty rather than one of them. I thought I could break it up." At 63 years old, the Georgia Bulldog can still mix it up. Although he's the eldest member of Penn State's coaching staff – he has Larry Johnson beaten by about two years – he is a regular in the Nittany Lion weight room. Each day around noon you'll see him there. He might not follow a strict regimen formulated by Craig Fitzgerald, but he manages to stay in pretty good shape – good enough to pry apart a couple of pissed-off 300pounders. "I'm hoping when I'm at that stage of my career that I can work out as hard as he can, said first-year assistant Anthony " Midget, who at 35 years old is the youngest member of the Nittany Lions' staff. "He probably can beat me right now – he's in that good of a shape. I'm really impressed with how hard he works." During the past 50 seasons, McWhorter has put in a lot of work, both on the field and off. So after finally helping guide the Texas Longhorns to national championship games in 2005 and '09, he finally called it a career. But his retirement ended when Bill O'Brien came calling. McWhorter had coached with O'Brien at Georgia Tech in the early 2000s and knew he had the potential to be a head coach, so he was eager to help an old friend for a couple of seasons. He also long admired the Nittany Lion tradition. "I'd always been enamored by it, because of things Coach Paterno did, " he said. But perhaps the main purpose for returning to the sidelines was to mentor student-athletes again, even when they're about to brawl. Said McWhorter, "This profession helps keep you young." Retirement will come calling again, though. When will that be? He said there's THE McWHORTER FILE . BORN June 17, 1950 HOMETOWN Atlanta ALMA MATER Georgia, '74 PLAYING CAREER A three-year letterman and two-year starter under coach Vince Dooley, McWhorter was a team captain and an All-Southeastern Conference guard for the Bulldogs in 1973. He also received honorable mention AllAmerica notice that season. In addition, McWhorter was an Academic All-SEC player in 1972 and '73 and had the team's highest GPA his senior year. COACHING CAREER McWhorter is in his second season as Penn State's offensive line coach. He has worked primarily with offensive linemen during the course of his career, which began in 1974 when he was hired as an assistant coach at Duluth (Ga.) High. But he has also coached tight ends, receivers, special teams and has served as an offensive coordinator, an associate head coach and a head no exact timetable, but it's imminent. "I'm just playing it one day and one year at a time, he said, "and seeing how things " go. " There are factors outside of Pennsylvania that will play into his decision. During coach for one season at West Georgia. McWhorter began his college coaching career in 1980 as receivers coach and special teams coordinator at Georgia Tech. It was the first of two stints with the Yellow Jackets. After coaching at West Georiga, Duke, Georgia, Clemson and Memphis, he returned to Georgia Tech as offensive line coach and assistant head coach. During that two-year stay in Atlanta, he worked with a rising young coaching prospect named Bill O'Brien, who was the team's quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at the time. Georgia Tech revamped its staff following George O'Leary's departure in December 2001, and McWhorter was hired by Texas to coach the Longhorns' offensive linemen. Thanks in large part to McWhorter's offensive line, Texas finished second in the nation in rushing in 2005 (274.9 yards per game), set an NCAA record with 652 points and won the BCS championship. Four years later, the Longhorns returned to the ti- his recent sabbatical, he and his wife, Rebecca, purchased a retirement home in Athens, Ga. They still own that house, and he has children and grandkids who live a few hundred yards away. Also, as he discovered in the parking lots of Sanford

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