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the two young athletes chatted a bit. Panek told Barkley she was confident she would win her race again, just as she'd done the first time. Then she told him she would "be the best block-hold- er" he could hope for. Whether it was her expert block-hold- ing, his terrific athletic ability, or some combination thereof, Barkley won his race, claiming the first gold medal of his track career. Panek, however, wasn't so fortunate. Winded from all the be- tween-race activity, she nicked a hurdle and finished eighth. By the time she re- turned to the high jump pit, she was in tears. Tough break, right? That's what a lot of people in the Zephyr Sports Complex were no doubt thinking. But Barkley, a Penn State recruit who ran track this spring mostly to stay in football shape, was thinking something else. Later that afternoon, he sought out Panek and handed her his gold medal. "You should have won," he told her. "You deserve this." Panek was overwhelmed. "It's honest- ly the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me," she told The (Allentown) Morning Call. "It's nice to know that there still are genuine people in this world, and that people care about what others do." Penn State knew it was getting a su- perb athlete when it signed Barkley in February; he rushed for 1,851 yards and scored 24 touchdowns for Whitehall last season, and he will most likely have a chance to compete for signifi- cant playing time as a true freshman at PSU. But if his gesture toward Panek is any indication, the Nittany Lions are also getting a guy with the sort of self- lessness and character that you want in your locker room and on your cam- pus. Penn State has gotten its share of those athletes over the years, the kind who do well both on the field and in school and who, through their personal conduct, serve as some of the university's best ambassadors. It almost goes without saying that Penn State still needs am- bassadors as it recovers from the devas- tation of the Sandusky scandal. As Keith Olbermann's recent Twitter onslaught (and subsequent suspension) clearly demonstrated, there are still plenty of people out there who view Penn State as a free-fire zone in which any attack, no matter how sweeping or vitriolic, is jus- tified. Penn State's athletic community, by virtue of its high public profile, has a big role to play in determining how the university is perceived. That might not be a fair burden to place on students who, in almost all cases, are still in their teens when they arrive on campus, but it's the reality. What's perhaps most interesting about Penn State's success in signing prospects such as Barkley is that these are exactly the sort of student-athletes that three years ago were supposed to be beyond its reach. The NCAA had issued its sanctions in July 2012, and, as one Twitter commentator memorably put it shortly after the penalties were an- nounced, had "just turned Penn State into ITT Tech." The harm to the football program was plainly evident, and there was speculation that other Penn State sports programs would be swept up in a wave of collateral damage due to the im- pact of the scandal on the university's overall reputation and the athletic de- partment's budget. That appraisal has since proven to be overly pessimistic. While the budget has certainly been impacted – Intercol- legiate Athletics was just barely in the black last year, largely because of Bill O'Brien's buyout – but the school's re- cruiting has been very strong across the board. As the 2015-16 academic year approaches, Penn State is getting set to welcome some of the most exciting re- cruiting classes in its recent history. James Franklin's class ranked 15th na- tionally in Rivals.com's final standings, the football team's best finish since it was 12th in 2010. Meanwhile, Patrick Chambers is getting set to welcome three three-star players, a big uptick in the Nittany Lions' hoop fortunes, while Coquese Washington is bringing in a four-member class that ranks 11th na- tionally according to ESPN/Hoop- Gurlz. In welcoming these kinds of athletes to campus and providing them with elite coaching, conditioning, strength train- ing and nutrition, Penn State has been doing away with the notion that there is something inherently suspicious about athletic success. In the wake of the scandal, the university was caught in a catch-22: Its athletic teams were the most visible facet of campus life, at least to outsiders, and thus gave Penn State a much-needed platform to express its in- stitutional values. Yet if those teams were good enough to garner national at- tention, their success was seen as evi- dence that the university paid too much attention to sports. Many Penn Staters bristle at the sug- gestion that the university should have to re-establish itself as one of the NCAA's model citizens, noting that it had been a national academic leader for decades. But the scandal squandered much of that goodwill, and regardless of how one feels about the factuality of the Freeh report, its impact on the per- ceptions of people outside the Penn State community is undeniable. So it was important that PSU impressed ath- letics monitor George Mitchell with its proactive approach to implementing the changes outlined in the report, and it was just as important that the school continued to perform well academical- ly. Now that the NCAA and Big Ten have abandoned their sanctions years early, Penn State doesn't have to be so sheepish about pursuing its athletic ambitions. It can look to raise the funds it needs in order to upgrade its facilities. It can give the Lasch Building the high-tech makeover that Franklin wants. If you're going to compete at an elite level – and AD Sandy Barbour has said that is her goal in all 31 varsity sports – you need to keep pace with your rivals. The way you do that is by building state-of-the-art facilities, providing world-class academic sup-

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