Blue White Illustrated

| GOING OUT ON TOP Shep Garner's faith is rewarded in final season at PSU S hep Garner buried his head into the shoulder of his head coach as he slowly drifted off the floor. The emotion of that moment poured out of the four-year starter, making its mark on Patrick Chambers' dark gray suit in the form of teardrops. Garner's time in a blue and white uniform had run out. A newly crowned NIT champion, Gar- ner had faced countless obstacles during his Penn State career. But the only one still standing in his way was the ladder underneath one of the baskets at Madison Square Garden. It was beckoning him to cut a portion of the net, so that's what he did, claiming a piece of Nittany Lion bas- ketball history while also validating a nickname that had been bestowed on him many years earlier: Champ. "My family, they call me Champ be- cause that's how I carry myself," Garner said. "I don't think accomplishment will define me. I think it's my attitude. I carry myself that way. To actually get a cham- pionship on my way out the door, it's great." Garner's mother, Kim, watched her son handle himself in that way from her seat at the Bryce Jordan Center, and before that, from her home in Chester, Pa. Kim didn't come up with the nickname; it came from uncles and cousins. She guessed that it started with the state championship he won in junior high school, but the meaning evolved to some- thing more significant. "He never held his head down. He al- ways knew that there was something at the end," she said. "He just always carried himself as a champion. He's someone that the uncles and cousins and everyone looked up to, even though he was young. It's just amazing. It all just came full cir- cle." From the onset of Shep's Penn State ca- reer, that trait, the one that gave birth to a nickname and made him a magnetic presence within his own family, was cru- cial. There was no time for Garner to settle into a role that would benefit him. When- ever he stepped onto the floor for a new season at the BJC, he was asked to do something different for the sake of team success. During year one, Garner was the spunky freshman scorer, playing second fiddle to D.J. Newbill. His sophomore season gave him a chance to fill a bigger role as a perimeter marksman who frequently played inside-out basketball with Bran- don Taylor in the post. But the natural order of progression was knocked out of line for Garner as a junior. Instead of fully taking the reins of the Nittany Lions, he ceded them to a wave of talented young players: Tony Carr, Lamar Stevens and Mike Watkins. It wasn't al- ways easy. "He wasn't happy with his junior year," Chambers said after the NIT final. There wasn't much reason to be. Penn State won only 15 games, and Garner was worse by almost every metric than he had been the year before. "We went through a lot of ups and downs, but Shep always had faith," Kim said. "Every time I'd call and fuss or com- plain and say, 'Take more shots' or, 'You be selfish, too,' he would tell me to be quiet and let him handle it his way. He didn't know exactly how, but he was going to do it." A year later, with Garner staring down the possibility that his career could end without a postseason appearance, the Nittany Lions finally began to find their stride. First, Garner went 4 of 5 from 3- point range in an 82-79 road win over 13th-ranked Ohio State, sparking a run of six wins in seven games. The Lions capped the streak with another win over paid dividends. The Nittany Lions missed out on a coveted at-large invi- tation to the NCAA tournament, but their sprint to the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament, followed by a five- game run to the NIT title, produced a 26-13 overall record. Their 26 victo- ries were the second-highest total in school history. The challenge now is to sustain that success. The Nittany Lions are losing more than just Carr this off-season. They've also graduated Shep Garner and Julian Moore, and Garner's per- formance as a senior was a catalyst for the Lions' postseason run. He finished as the program's record-holder for ca- reer 3-pointers (336) and the owner of the Big Ten single-season mark for 3- pointers made (120). But four of Penn State's top six scorers have at least one more year of eligibility, and the team's confidence is growing. Stevens said recently that confidence was the key to the Lions' turnaround. He said it was the biggest difference between the dis- appointments of a year ago and the feelings of success that now accom- pany the Nittany Lions into the off- season. So even though Carr, Garner and Moore won't be back, Chambers and the Nittany Lions are convinced that this past season was only a starting point for the program, not a peak. "These experiences are critical in our development. They're really be- ginning to grow and find success, and winning really helps, because prior to that we only won 15 games last year," Chambers said. "This is going to be a springboard for us. As long as we con- tinue to compete, continue to grow, continue to embrace these experi- ences, it can only help us for our fu- ture." Proud of what has already been achieved but committed to improv- ing upon it, the Nittany Lions find themselves looking ahead with a new sense of possibility. Or, as Watkins said succinctly, "We're going to be good." ■

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