Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/260491
f there's one thing I've tried to avoid in these pages during the past two years, it's posing the following ques- tion: What would Joe do? That just wouldn't be fair. Not to the memory of Joe Paterno and certainly not to his suc- cessors, who deserve the opportunity to run the program as they see fit rather than to have their every decision second- guessed on the grounds that JoePa might have handled things differently. And yet… Watching Penn State's signing day fes- tivities, it was impossible not to draw comparisons between the Franklin era and the Paterno era, simply because the program this year deviated 180 degrees from the low-key (some would say no- key) approach of years past. This was not like one of those signing days from the 1980s and '90s in which the Sports Information office, at Pater- no's insistence, didn't even bother put- ting out a news release listing the names of the players who had signed. This was- n't even like last year's signing day, dur- ing which Bill O'Brien held a news con- ference and offered a few complimentary remarks about the incoming class along with the usual time-will-tell caveats. This was showtime. Or, to be more accu- rate, There were crowds, cheerleaders, balloons, trumpeters, trombonists, drummers, celebrity guests. The Nittany Lion mas- cot showed up, as did a coffeehouse duo featuring a guitarist who doubled as a rapper. There was a tap dancer, too. I am not making this up. To hear James Franklin tell it, the "Signature Event" that Penn State staged on the evening of Feb. 5, an event that drew nearly 4,000 fans to the Bryce Jordan Center in the middle of an ice storm, was only the beginning. It will be reprised every year, and the Class of 2015 will get an even more extravagant welcome than the Class of 2014 did. "This is going to grow," Franklin said. "It's going to be awesome." Given his penchant for showmanship and his off- the-charts ambition, awesome could mean anything from more cameos by for- mer All-Americans to Cirque du Soleil. All we know at the moment is that it'll be on Feb. 4, 2015. Save the date. Before heading over to the BJC for this year's event, Franklin explained that he was well aware "things have been done differently here in the past." He said that the festivities were meant as a way to celebrate the long hours that went into assembling Penn State's class. Most of the team's new coaches had been liv- ing out of suitcases since leaving Van- CENTER OF ATTENTION James Franklin is the impresario behind Penn State's signing day spectacular J U D G M E N T C A L L I Tim Owen