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progress it made in his first three sea- sons. "For me," he said, "it's always been about, what do we need to do to keep Penn State moving forward? What do we need to do in terms of support? What do we need to do in terms of my staff? What do we need to do in terms of facilities?" Franklin said he studies what other programs do, arriving at his office in the Lasch Building at around 6 a.m. each day to pore over news articles and tweets concerning his competitors in the Big Ten and across the country. The com- parisons are a useful way for Franklin to assess where his own program stands in relation to its rivals. He said that Penn State has made some headway in its efforts to stay current, having revamped its locker room and team meeting room, as well as the lobby of the Lasch Building, but he added that there remains a lot of work to be done to fully modernize the university's football headquarters. "I think a lot of people out there prob- ably think that Lasch is done," Franklin said. "We haven't touched 60 percent of Lasch. The locker room was a nice proj- ect for us, but we still have a lot of work to do." Since the beginning of his tenure in University Park, Franklin has been talk- ing about the need to improve the team's facilities. During the Coaches Caravan, he said that for decades, the program had been steadily falling behind its ri- vals, many of which were sinking mil- lions into their stadiums, locker rooms and training equipment. Franklin said the program's needs wouldn't be so urgent "if we would have been pecking away at this for the last 20 years. But the fact that we hadn't done anything for 15 years [means that improvements are needed]. Because as we weren't doing things, other people were. We had fallen behind, and that's why I was pounding the table so much when I first got here, because I knew how far behind we had fallen. So that's why it's important to us. "And right now, in Lasch for example, we have stuff that we're able to show that's really nice. Our lobby is really nice now. Our auditorium is really nice. Our locker room is really nice. But then you walk into another part of the build- ing, to the meeting rooms, and they haven't been touched in 16 years. So they're just the things that we need to do. Our turf outside was supposed to be replaced 10 years ago. So yeah, I think there is a real sense of urgency with those things." While much of the conversation about Penn State's future concerned its facili- ties, there's also the matter of Franklin's future with the program. He's about to begin the fourth year of the six-year contract he signed in 2014. He's been talking with university officials about an extension, and Barbour said the two sides are "almost there." She said that the major points were agreed upon quickly and that there has been less ur- gency to commit to the smaller details. She said she doesn't think it will be long until it's done. Franklin said he's been less focused on his contract than on the program's other needs, including the facilities he has en- visioned. "It's going to be a slow, steady, scratch, crawl, fight to get where we need to go," he said. "So we still have a lot of work to do. That, to me, is what it's about – all those other things, not necessarily me." ■ A L L S P O R T S PSU tied for lead in national titles since '07 Penn State's lengthy national championship history dates to 1921, including another crown this year, which has helped keep the Nittany Lions at the fore- front nationally in NCAA title success. Starting with the men's and women's fencing team winning its 10th national crown in March 2007, Penn State's 19 NCAA championships during the past 10 years are tied for the national lead with Oregon, Southern California and Stan- ford. The next-closest school, Florida, has 16 titles during the same 10-year span. The totals include football national championships. The Nittany Lions have won at least one NCAA title in each of the past 11 aca- demic years, starting in 2006-07. Penn State's 19 NCAA championships are more than double the number of NCAA titles won by every Big Ten school during the past 10 years. Ohio State is second with nine. ■ SPORT CHAMPIONSHIPS Women's volleyball 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014 Wrestling 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 Men's and women's fencing 2007, 2009, 2010, 2014 Men's gymnastics 2007 Women's soccer 2015 Men's volleyball 2008 P E N N S T A T E ' S N C A A T I T L E S S I N C E M A R C H 2 0 0 7

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