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"Look, we're not trying to jam this down anyone's throat. Unfortunately, there isn't anybody in the football pro- gram and few in the athletic department who have any knowledge of what has gone on in the past. Everyone is new. We've been working various avenues to get them to understand the importance of, the significance of and the holistic value of what the Quarterback Club can do for the football program and the ath- letic department." Rohrer said he understands where Franklin and other new people in foot- ball and the athletic department are coming from. "I knew nothing about the Quarter- back Club when my wife and I moved here in 2003," Rohrer said. "Linda is the Penn Stater. I graduated from Lehigh. I was trying to do some consulting in the IT world when we were introduced to a couple of club members – Jim Meister, who is still a director, and Bill Jaffe. They talked us into joining, and then about 2007, I wanted to be more involved and became a director. The club really is there to help Penn State football." Sandy Barbour, the new athletics di- rector, has apparently bought in. As the AD, she is officially on the club board and has been to several luncheons. At an early luncheon, Barbour answered ques- tions posed by Steve Jones, and at an- other she made revealing off-the-record comments about a controversial on- field issue. The annual awards banquet is the per- fect example of what the State College Quarterback Club does for the football program that has nothing to do with who the head coach is. The club pays most of the costs of the banquet, and based on anecdotal evidence, that also is different from other colleges where the banquets are financed by the athletic department. In fact, that was the situa- tion at Franklin's previous school, Van- derbilt. Then there is the club's Academic En- hancement Fund for Football, an en- dowment totaling more than $100,000 that helps fund academic support. Not only does the management of the en- dowment follow NCAA rules but also university policies, including supervi- sion by the board of trustees. Earlier this year, the club gave a special donation of $18,000 to the football pro- gram to purchase a six-passenger golf cart after Franklin told board leaders he could use such a golf cart to cut down on his travel logistics around campus. Franklin now uses the cart weekly to speed to and from his Tuesday afternoon news conferences at Beaver Stadium, and he also drove it to the stadium for his first two appearances before his most loyal fans. Franklin was not asked at the Temple luncheon about his absences. When I in- quired about his decision to attend the last three luncheons, he said, via an emailed statement from Penn State's Athletic Communications office, "The State College Quarterback Club is a great, longstanding Penn State tradition. I have enjoyed getting to know the membership and look forward to further involvement moving forward." What the coach and his staff need to know is that the State College Quarter- back Club is unique in college football. There are probably other booster clubs that meet weekly with the head football coach during the season, but it's unlikely they are as longstanding as the one at Penn State. ESPN's Ivan Maisel, arguably the most authoritative college football writer in the nation, is not familiar with anything like the Penn State group, but he thought Alabama's Nick Saban "did something regularly… with high rollers." However, Kevin Almond, Alabama's senior associate athletic director, told me Saban hosts a luncheon on campus before home games that is open to the public at a cost of $50. "It's called 'Nick at Noon,' and he was doing them every Friday but last year cut it down to four or five home games," Al- mond said. "Typically, if a particular [Alabama] team is being honored, those captains are invited to participate or some former lettermen and sometimes the head coach of another sport might speak briefly. And then [Saban] comes in and speaks for 25-30 minutes. I'm pretty sure he did this [when coaching] at LSU, and I think he did it at Michigan State, too. It usually draws a couple of hundred people." Malcolm Moran, who covered college football for decades before becoming a professor at Penn State and now Indi- ana, isn't aware of anything like the State College Quarterback Club either, and he has attended a few of the lunch- eons. Moran remembered a low-key group at Notre Dame in the 1960s when Ara Parseghian was the head coach: "It grew through the years until it peaked during the Lou Holtz years when several hundred would show up for Friday luncheons during game weekends, but the club was disbanded after it became part of Notre Dame's NCAA probation in 1999. "I would be surprised if they did not exist, especially in the South," Moran added, but he is unsure how close they would be to duplicating the State Col- lege organization. If there is such a club in the South, Claude Felton doesn't know about it. Felton, the senior associate athletic di- rector for communications at Georgia, has been in charge of sports information since 1979. "I'm not aware of any clubs that meet weekly and the head coach is in atten- dance at each one," Felton told me. "I would think there may be some of those at smaller institutions, but that would be hard to find out. I doubt you are going to find any that have been meeting as long as yours with the head coach." Perhaps it's not mandatory that the head coach appear at every luncheon to appease the Quarterback Club members. Perhaps they would be satisfied if he showed up half of the time. Certainly, there's adjustment in the format that could still excite attendees – maybe with the use of game video like the old days or what O'Brien did but with the offensive and defensive coordinators narrating when the head coach is absent. Or per- haps a timely guest speaker, such as an active or recently retired game official, could serve as a substitute, giving the attendees an unusual insight into the previous or next game. Then again, nothing is forever. ■

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