Blue White Illustrated

BLUE-WHITE GAME PREVIEW | PENN STATE VS. HOUSTON But Jordan has worries. He worries about his father, a man he never need- ed to be concerned about before, and his mother, the one who does every- thing for the family, and his sisters – one finishing her freshman year at IUP and another a sophomore in high school. They need him. "That's been a thing for me," he said. "I think, 'I gotta do this for my fami- ly now, too.' I still have my mom work- ing at the school. He's at home, doing stuff around the house. He helps out, but he can't do much." And his sisters? A few years from now, they'll both be in college. He says he doesn't think about the money because he doesn't know how much he could potentially earn. Last year, former Auburn defensive tack- le Nick Fairley signed a four-year contract worth $10 million with a $5.7 million guaranteed signing bonus af- ter being selected 13th overall by the Detroit Lions. With a signature, Hill could change the fortunes of his entire family. And while he says money isn't his motiva- tion, he understands its possibili- ties. Said Cristen, "His motivation to work harder at school and football, and honestly, to get to the NFL, is to make sure that his mom and his dad are set, and so that he doesn't have to worry about his dad not working, or so that Ms. Sue doesn't have to bust her butt to cover stuff financially." Until that late-April evening next year, the hype is going to continue to grow around Hill. He says it won't change him, and you'll believe him, be- cause his fiercely protective instincts for his family, girlfriend, teammates and coaches won't let it. They would never let him get an inflated opinion of himself, and he's too focused on his goals to notice the attention, anyway. "Hype isn't anything that you have to think about. You don't have to live up to what somebody else is saying you have to be," he said. "You have to know where you want to be, and that's what you want to go do. "You hear people telling you what you want to do. I hear people say, 'He should be a top guy.' Well, I want to be the best guy. You know? I want to go above that." 24 A P R I L 3 0 , 2 0 1 2 P Senior Pete Massaro eagerly awaits his return to action this fall BACK ON THE LINE ete Massaro has been here before. Two years ago, the Penn State defensive end entered the 2010 season as a relative un- known. He had missed the previ- ous season due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and had redshirted in 2008 as a true fresh- man. But seem- ingly without warning, Mas- saro burst into the starting line- up in the final 11 games of the season, finishing fourth on the team with eight tackles for loss and racking up 37 tackles and 3.5 sacks. His performance was one of the MASSARO few highlights for an uncharac- teristically soft Nittany Lion de- fensive unit. Now, he's trying to make the same impact again, under eerily similar circumstances. Since tearing the ACL in his left knee early in spring practice last year, Massaro has been through the heartbreak, the operating room, the countless hours in the training room, and has finally worked his way back to the field this spring. Again. Taking inspiration from prede- cessors such as Jerome Hayes who endured similar ordeals at Penn State, Massaro said he did- n't question whether he would re- turn to the field someday. "I knew I was going to come back regardless," he said. "Hav- ing those guys to look up to and the guys who have done it before me, it's just more motivation and it keeps the hope alive. It wasn't really a crushing thing for me. Obviously I was upset for a while afterward, but it's something you just have to move on from." For the second time, he has done just that. Massaro returned to the prac- tice field with a (nearly) clean bill of health on March 26 and said he couldn't be happier. "It feels good to finally get back out there," he said. "It wasn't re- ally something that I was actively thinking about. I was just kind of taking it one day at a time in the winter and trying to progress day- by-day with the knee. So it feels good to get back out there. I'm a little rusty at this point. The knee is not 100 percent yet, but I'm making progress and just get- ting better every day." Massaro put his recovery at about 80 to 85 percent, and he's hoping to be at 100 percent soon. Defensive line coach Larry John- son is hoping so, too. He's been careful with Massaro this spring, an indication of the high expecta- tions he has for the senior this coming season. Massaro said he received limited repetitions in the first part of spring practice and was sitting out certain drills entirely. While he is eager to re- sume full-contact practices, Mas- saro said he continually reminds himself that it takes time to re- cover from an ACL injury. "My goal is to return to the form that I was in during the spring of last year and at the end of two seasons ago," he said. "But I've got to keep telling my- self that I've got to take it slow, take it one day at a time and not get too ahead of myself. It does take time to get that muscle memory back. It's a slow process, but I'm glad that I'm getting it out of the way now, as opposed to during camp, so I think it's a good thing." As was the case after the first injury, many of the final hurdles that remain are mental. For in- stance, he's had to learn to ig- nore the clunky brace that is sta- bilizing his left knee. Massaro said he's expecting to play without it in the fall, noting that there are times when it in- hibits his natural quickness. "There are definitely times when I feel like my head gets in the way more than my knee does," he said. "There are other times when I can take a step back and say, 'OK, well, that part of it was mental and the other part was definitely a little bit of rustiness on the part of my knee.' "But I just have to think back to the last time and when I came back from the last knee in camp. I was a little bit rusty then, also. So I know it's an adjustment pe- riod. I'll keep my nose to the grindstone and taking things one day at a time, and I know every- thing is going to turn out all right." – N.B. W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M

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