Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/703041
things I hear from the players are gratify- ing." There's no better way to prove the impact of Vanderlinden's collegiate coaching phi- losophy upon the NFL than to look at the final tackling statistics in the 2015 season. Bowman led the league, with Posluszny fifth and Lee tied for sixth as you see here: Name Solo Ast. Total Bowman (49ers) 116 38 150 Posluszny (Jaguars) 133 30 133 Lee (Cowboys) 76 52 128 What's also impressive is the longevity and durability of the trio. All have suffered critical injuries that forced them to miss considerable playing time, including the entire 2014 season for Bowman and Lee. Posluszny has been in the NFL since 2006, with Bowman and Lee starting in 2010. "There are 11 players that I coached who played in the NFL," Vanderlinden said. "That's a pretty significant number be- cause it only really started from 2006 on after Paul finished up at Penn State. He was the first. So it's also gratifying that that many players had that success in the NFL." As of the spring minicamps, nine of Vanderlinden's linebacker protégés were on NFL rosters. In addition to Posluszny, Bowman and Lee, that list of players in- cluded 2013 draftees Michael Mauti and Stupar of the New Orleans Saints, Gerald Hodges (another 2013 draftee) of the San Francisco 49ers, Mike Hull (2015) of the Miami Dolphins and Cameron (Derrick) Wake, a defensive end for Miami, who was primarily a linebacker in his Penn State days (2000-04). The retired NFL players who were coached by Vanderlinden include Shaw, Carson, Josh Hull and Dan Connor. Two of his players were two- time first-team All-Americans at Penn State: Posluszny (2005-06) and Connor (2006-07). Mauti earned first-team honors in 2012, with Bowman (2009) and Hull (2014) selected second-team All-Ameri- cans. Posluszny also won the Butkus Award in 2005 as the nation's outstanding line- backer. Vanderlinden has stayed in touch with most of his former players since they left Penn State and he was invited to the wed- dings of Posluszny, Lee and Con- nor. "That was a real honor for me to be included in their wed- dings as a friend," he said. "It's been easy to keep in contact with everyone over the years through text messaging and Facebook and an occasional phone call with some of them. We just talk about how things are going. Sean and I get into lengthy football conver- sations. I'll ask him about things I might have seen on television, and he'll talk about various schemes they're using. Some of the others not so much football, a couple of questions on trends just to help me keep up to date or what they're doing that could be helpful to us, but a lot of per- sonal stuff." Connor, who was with the Car- olina Panthers for most of his seven-year NFL career, reached out to Vanderlinden in 2014 when he decided to go into coaching. "Dan called when he took an as- sistant's job at West Chester Uni- versity," Vanderlinden said. "He called and we talked about dif- ferent techniques and funda- mentals. I sent him some of my technique DVDs. He's just be- come the head coach at a high school [Archbishop Carroll] in Philadelphia, and we'll probably talk more." Then there's Shaw, who played alongside Posluszny and Connor at Penn State and then went on to a seven-year NFL career with four teams before being stuck with amyotrophic lateral scle- rosis, better known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. There's no cure for the degenerative condition, which affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. "Tim's out there fighting the good fight," Vanderlinden said. "I follow him on Twitter and Facebook and call him occasionally. We talk about how he's doing. He grew up in the same town I did, Livonia, Mich. I recruited him, and a couple of my nieces went to school with him, and one of my 2 0 1 6 P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L