Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/199173
MEN'S BASKETBALL Tim Owen | P atrick Chambers is coming out of the most difficult, disappointing, frustrating season in his career as a head coach. But through it all – from the loss of his star point guard for virtually the entire season to the Big Ten losing streak that eventually reached 14 games – Chambers maintained the can-do attitude and tattooed-on smile that have become his trademarks at Penn State. He got into coaching more than a decade ago after a near-fatal stabbing, and that experience has given the Nittany Lions' third-year mentor a perspective that helps him ride out the ups and downs of his chosen profession. "Everybody thinks it's a gimmick – attitude and the way I carry myself. [Last year] just proved to me that it's not a gimmick. It's who I am because of what happened to me 12 years ago now, he said. " "It's very real. It's a way of life, not just when things are going your way. " By any conceivable standard, hardly anything went Penn State's way last season. After losing senior point guard Tim Frazier to an Achilles tear just four games into the season, Chambers kicked and clawed and did everything in his power to keep the Nittany Lions competitive. Although they were able to earn a few nonconference victories against the likes of Bucknell and Duquesne, Frazier's absence was sorely apparent even as the team was winning six of the first eight games it played without him. The Big Ten season was a struggle from the very beginning, but even as the Lions' losing streak reached double digits, Chambers refused to allow players to feel sorry for themselves or pack it in and begin preparing for next season. Instead, he insisted that his overmatched team plow ahead. "Your true character is revealed during the most difficult times, he said. "For a " head coach in his second year in the Big