Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/541265
P R E V I E W Lincoln, Iowa City, Madison and Min- neapolis added to the excursions to Philadelphia, College Park and the bowl games in Florida. Sometimes we had to fly to see our Nittany Lions play such teams as USC and BYU, but it was worth it to passionate fans like us. And we hardly knew anyone connected with the team, except Paterno and some admin- istrators. My Northwestern students could not believe my office was decorated with Penn State football photos and memo- rabilia. Over the years, after they gradu- ated, some of the students joined us at our tailgates at home and away. One of the most memorable times was in 1994 on the Saturday of the now-historic game with Michigan at Ann Arbor. However, the "tailgate" was in a 15th- floor hotel suite in downtown Los An- geles. This was the nationally televised showdown game against Michigan in mid-October. Carole and I could not be in Ann Arbor because I was attending a broadcasting news convention. A con- vention conflict forced me to miss most of the first half when Penn State jumped out to a 16-0 second-quarter lead. As Michigan took the lead, 17-16, in the third quarter, my suite began filling up with many Penn State fans attending the convention. One of my recent North- western grad students who had his un- dergraduate degree from Michigan had been watching the game with my wife from the beginning, and he was ecstatic. He was en route to a TV station in northern California for his first job in- terview and was one of the few Michigan fans in my room. When Bobby Engram caught that 16- yard touchdown pass from Kerry Collins and won the game, 31-24, in the last two minutes, I thought my student was going to jump out the window. Well, Rich Eisen got that job in Redding, and he wasn't there long before ESPN hired him and turned him into a star. He's now the lead anchor for the NFL Network. I have a lot of other Big Ten memories involving Penn State's encounters with Michigan, and some are not good. I still cannot believe the way Penn State lost the 1993 game at Beaver Stadium on that goal-line stand and the 2005 game at Ann Arbor on that last-second touchdown pass. I still wonder what the officials were thinking in '93 when they threatened to penalize Penn State early in the game because of the crowd noise. And I still wonder about those controversial extra seconds the officials gave Michigan in the last moments of