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going to be times when the play breaks down, and he's got to be able to extend the play and make some plays outside the pocket. Have you thought at all about what it's going to be like on open- ing day? This is a stadium that you visited when you were a kid. Now you're getting to coach here. Oh yeah, you can't help but drive by that stadium and let your mind wander a little bit. But we know there's a lot of work to do before opening day. As a coach, you try to keep your focus on what's next. And what's next for us is 15 days of practice here in the spring. We're re- ally going to concentrate on putting our offense in, seeing who can exe- cute and just raising the level of ef- ficiency in our offense so we can identify who our starters are, who are the guys who are ascending in this scheme. And then we'll have a pretty good idea going into camp what they can and cannot do. And then in camp we'll build on that. Do you hope to come out of spring practice with a pretty good idea who your starter is going to be? I think it's always best if that's the case, if you can look at it and say, here's our guy. That's not always the case, though, when there's an open competition. Can 15 days ID a guy? It depends. If he plays well enough, it certainly can. But if one of them doesn't ascend and they play on a roller coaster – and that happens in a new offense – it might take us a scrimmage into the fall camp. And that's OK. We're not playing Ohio University on day three of spring ball. So you take it one day at a time and you see how that kid continually improves. The summer is a huge opportunity for those guys to improve. It used to be, years ago, guys would go home for the summer. Then they'd come back and you would see who's in shape. That's not the case anymore. Now these guys train all summer, so a player can make tremendous strides, particularly learning a new offense. It's hard to get it all in 15 days. So there will be plenty of op- portunities to improve between now and opening day. W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M After a lengthy rehab, tight end Garry Gilliam hopes to make an impact this fall THE WAIT IS OVER BY MATT HERB matt@bluewhiteonline.com letes around campus after they've broken a bone or torn a ligament. And if you think that driving a cart for weeks at a time would quickly get annoying, imagine do- ing it in the midst of a central Pennsylvania winter. The scooters don't come with four-wheel drive or anti-lock brakes. But for a guy N who knows those winter driving hazards entirely too well, Garry Gilliam doesn't have a lot of com- plaints. "I got used to it," the junior tight end said. "They're actually very convenient. But you do slide through buildings when your tires get wet." A year ago, Gilliam was forced to GILLIAM ride a scooter during the winter months while recovering from a knee injury that ended his debut season. And the injury was only the beginning of his long ordeal. He tore a couple of knee liga- ments and endured several addi- tional setbacks that delayed his rehabilitation by months. But as he preps for his first spring practice in two years, Gilliam is upbeat. He's healthy again and has been doing all the same running and lifting drills that his teammates have been do- ing in anticipation of the start of spring practice. He said the coaches might choose to ease him into things once the drills begin March 26, but he expects to be ready to participate fully in the workouts. obody likes the scooters, those little motorized vehicles that propel Penn State ath- "The rehab was great," Gilliam said. "It got everything back to normal. All the strength is back." Gilliam's ordeal began in a game at Iowa in October 2010. He had enjoyed a quick ascent after being moved from defensive end to tight end following his redshirt year and was making his third consec- utive start when the Lions took the field at Kinnick Stadium. But, while trying to throw a downfield block, he collided with a Hawkeyes player and his left knee gave way. After being helped to the sideline, he received a sobering evaluation from the team's physi- cian, Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli. "He said, 'I know you tore at least two things, but I'm not exactly sure what,' " Gilliam recalled. "Then we got the MRI, and that's exactly what it was. I tore my ACL, MCL, had some meniscus damage and a little bit of patella damage, too." The injury brought an end to his 2010 season. Soon afterward, any hopes he had of playing in 2011 vanished, too. His original plan was to get the medial collateral ligament fixed right away, then to undergo an ad- ditional procedure sometime around the Thanksgiving holiday to repair the anterior cruciate liga- ment. But after having the MCL re- paired about a week after he was hurt, Gilliam developed an infec- tion, requiring two additional pro- cedures to clean up his knee. The ACL would have to wait. Then in late January, doctors discovered an additional problem: The anchor that had been insert- ed in his knee to hold down the MCL was causing problems. Fluid was building up in his knee, and the bone hadn't healed around the anchor as expected. Surgeons had to go back in and drain the knee, pushing the ACL surgery back even further. "I didn't end up getting my ACL done until May," Gilliam said. "That's why [the rehab] took so long. If I had gotten my ACL done without the complications caused by the infection, I probably would have played this past season." Gilliam, who had one catch for 21 yards in the five games he played before his injury, is hoping to get that season back. He is peti- tioning the NCAA for a sixth year, and if he gets it, he will have three years of eligibility remaining. In the meantime, he is focused on the upcoming season. Junior Kevin Haplea is the team's most experienced returnee at tight end, but even Haplea is relatively untested with only six career catches. Jesse James and Kyle Carter are freshmen, and Nate Cadogan has been switched to of- fensive tackle. Listed at 6-foot-6, 275 pounds, Gilliam figures to be well posi- tioned to challenge for the starting spot this fall – a spot that will like- ly figure prominently in future Nit- tany Lion game plans. Gilliam said that after Penn State plucked Bill O'Brien from the New England Pa- triots' staff to be its new head coach, he watched the Patriots' playoff run intently to see how they used tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. "I did get excited when I saw he was coming, knowing what the Patriots are doing with their tight ends," he said. "That definitely [bodes] well for the position." So does Gilliam's health. If he's back at full strength – and he in- sists he is – he figures to be a for- midable threat both as a receiver and blocker in the Nittany Lions' new offense. How formidable? No one is more eager to find out than Gilliam himself. "The knee feels great," he said. "I'm still in the process of getting my confidence back. It's been a long process, but it's all good now." A P R I L 1 1 , 2 0 1 2 27

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