Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/79325
the decision we're making, and this is why we're making it. Anybody who is with us, let's go, because this is the only way we can do this. "After that, we just said, 'Open forum. Tell us what you feel. Let's talk through this. We're all in this together.' " The questions that followed got right to the heart of underclassmen's con- cerns. If you were in my situation, what would you do? What happens next year and the year after, when you've graduated and moved on? If this guy goes, should I go? The meeting ended after about an hour, but with so many teammates still clearly undecided, Mauti, Zordich and other returning players knew their work was far from finished. One of their biggest concerns was that the loss of a player or two would start a domino effect that would ripple through the entire roster. So, as their coaches had been doing all day, they began making phone calls, sending texts, dropping by for visits. Teammates, parents, grandparents, high school coaches – whoever had the ear of their teammates, they wanted to make sure their message was being heard. With a swarm of opposing coach- es already en route to University Park in hope of poaching players, the seniors felt they had no other choice. "We had to recruit our own players because of the situation," Mauti said. Working on a strategy with O'Brien and strength coach Craig Fitzgerald, Mauti and Zordich held a series of meetings, figuring out which teammates were on the fence and needed to be persuaded. "We called our guys one by one by one by one. 'Are you with us? What's the deal?' " Opposing coaches, meanwhile, were calling to solicit visits, offering starting positions to players throughout the team, including Mauti. "We heard about the schools some of the guys were talking to," he said, "and we were just like, 'You want to go to this place? The grass is always greener on the other side.' "Some of the guys started believing what the coaches were telling them. And I understand that, because you're an 18- or 20-year-old kid and you're thinking, 'OK, we have a whole bunch of garbage over here and an easier road over there.' " Desperately trying to hold the team together, Zordich took on an unfamiliar role. "I hated every second of it, because that's the last thing I want to do," he said. "I'm the kind of guy who's in the locker room. I'm messing around and I have a lot of fun. I'm friends with these guys. "The last thing that I want to do is sit on the phone and have to throw these ideas at my friends about why they should stay. I just don't like to get into people's business like that, but in certain situations, you really have no choice because you're trying to keep the team together." Progress had been made, thanks in part to a speech by O'Brien the next morning in which he questioned the promises that players were hearing from other coaches. But many team- mates were still undecided, so Zordich and Mauti approached O'Brien with another idea. "We've gotta get on TV," Mauti said. "We need to do this. This isn't about us. It's about the whole big picture. It's about everybody. It's about Penn State, together, moving forward and doing the right things. It's for our players, for our team, for our program, for our university, and for the future." Though players had been told not to talk to the media, they felt a need to contradict the narrative that had emerged: that the entire squad was falling apart and that Penn State would be lucky to win a game this fall. "We're sitting there, and all these people, they're thinking all these thoughts that at the end of the day are all wrong," Zordich said. "So we just went up to Coach O'Brien's office and were like, 'Coach, I know you've got this rule, but we need to get out there and we need to say something. We need to let them know that we're staying because all they're hearing now is bullshit, really.' " O'Brien consented, leaving the pair to contact Penn State's sports media representative to quickly invite cameras to the Lasch practice fields early Wednesday morning. Following the team's workout, the pair spoke for two minutes without notes, publicly affirming their support for their coach, their teammates and Penn State football. The next two weeks were not without losses. But with the season now just days away, a more unified and resilient team remains. "When the sanctions hit, that was just a shot right to the heart," Zordich said. "But I think that it's really an awesome, awesome statement from the team and from the university that we kept 78 out of 85 scholarship players and have a team of 105 going into the season. That's crazy." The players who helped save Penn State football don't yet know what they've done. They're college kids who came to Penn State intending to play football and get a degree. Instead, a set of circumstances be- yond their control changed their roles entirely, from carefree kids into repre- sentatives of a community that is hop- ing to move forward in the aftermath of a tragedy. "I've spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to analyze that whole pic- ture," Mauti said. "I'm trying to wrap my head around it, and on so many levels, this is so big that you can't. "You can just control what you can control and do your best to help. This is something that is so close to me and is something that I've put every- thing into, as a lot of guys have here. So you really just do what you can."