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rom the start, Penn State's relationship with the Big Ten has
been complicated.
When the move was announced in December 1989, coaches,
fans and media greeted it with a mixture of astonishment
and trepidation. Nittany Lion football fans argued that con-
ference membership would hinder the team's national championship
hopes – a fear that would prove to be well-founded only two years
into the Big Ten era. The university's wrestling coach at the time,
Rich Lorenzo, expressed misgivings about leaving behind the Eastern
Wrestling League, which Penn State had helped to create. The bas-
ketball teams braced for much-improved schedules and frequent
midwinter excursions to the snowy plains of America's heartland.
And the coaches of various Olympic sports teams tried to imagine
how their lives would change as representatives of the Big Ten's
easternmost outpost.
But for one Penn State team, there wasn't a whole lot of ambiguity.
Not then. Not now. That would be the women's volleyball team. For
Russ Rose and company, the Big Ten has been a booster rocket that
has propelled the program to dizzying new heights.
Penn State had previously been the +agship team of the Atlantic
10, where it won 10 consecutive conference championships but
MAGNIFICENT
SEVEN
Penn State sweeps BYU to go
where no team has gone before
in NCAA women's volleyball
F
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