Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/604314
P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L > > have, at least not yet. But there was more to Paterno's approach than simply a re- luctance to play them, discuss them with reporters or even put them in the media guide. In his 1989 autobiography "Paterno by the Book," he called for a return to freshman ineligibility, as had been the standard in college football until 1972. "I know that I'm in a relatively small minority in urging that," the Nittany Lions' longtime head coach wrote, "but I think it's wrong to allow a seventeen- or eighteen-year- old kid to check into college and imme- diately get swallowed up by the kind of football played at Division I-A schools. At some schools, a freshman plays his first game before he attends his first class. He's surrounded so immediately by ath- letes and gets immersed so fast in a training schedule, he has almost no chance to form friendships with other students, partic- ularly in a school where he is segregated in an athletic dorm." At the time Paterno made his suggestion, college teams were allowed 95 scholarship players. He proposed increasing that total to 100, gradually eliminating freshman participation, then creating separate teams for first-year players that would practice only three times a week and play three or four games a year against similar squads from other schools. With 100 total schol- arship players, roughly one-quarter of whom would be ineligible, teams would have 75 players with which to form a depth chart. Paterno considered that more than sufficient, and to those coaches who dis- agreed, he had a succinct rebuttal, calling their counterarguments "baloney." The NCAA went in the opposite direc- tion, trimming the scholarship cap to 85, a move that vaporized whatever support there may have been for revoking fresh- man eligibility. In the years since, some of the concerns that Paterno highlighted – particularly his fears about the ego- inflating nature of sudden stardom – have eased somewhat, with high school players now receiving plenty of informal media training thanks to the growth of recruiting websites and proliferation of social media. Even so, the movement never went away entirely, and in recent months it has gained some momentum. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany revealed this past February that the conference was studying what it called a "year of readiness" in which fresh- men, either in all sports or just "select" sports, would sit out without sacrificing a season of eligibility. The commissioners of the Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast Confer- ence have also expressed interest in ex- ploring the idea, but there are doubts that it will ever amount to more than just an interesting thought experiment. As NCAA president Mark Emmert noted, "It has all kinds of problems." Whether it happens or not, Penn State