Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/99533
Penn State displays its fighting spirit SIGN OF THE TIMES Penn State enshrined the 2012 team in Beaver Stadium prior to the season finale against Wisconsin. logue stopped just short of calling for O'Brien's canonization, and it prompted eye rolls throughout the room, with reporters shooting each other looks of bemusement and irritation. By the time it ended – with a "We are…" exhortation, of all things – even O'Brien looked flummoxed. He offered a halfhearted "Penn State" when prompted, then scanned the room with a desperate look in his eyes. "Bill, I've got an easier one for you," shouted a reporter in the back. "Please, do" O'Brien replied, seeming relieved to get the news conference back on-topic. "Who's passing the [mic] tonight?" Apparently, this kind of thing doesn't happen very often in New England. To be fair, it probably doesn't happen very often anywhere, even in a world in which successful coaches are venerated like conquering generals. At a lot of schools, including those that are known for their continual success, coaches are whistles-for-hire, remaining on campus only until the losses start to outnumber the victories or until a better job comes along. Case in point: the guy in the visitor's media room the night of Penn State's finale. Wisconsin's overtime loss turned out to be Bret Bielema's last game on the Badgers' sideline, although no one knew at the time that he was headed to Arkansas, including, it seems, Bielema himself. Penn State fans like having a football coach who not only fits into the university community but also embodies its most high-minded ideals. They like those notions so much that many have rejected the findings of the Freeh report simply because they JUDGMENT CALL Patrick Mansell ill O'Brien may or may not have dropped an f-bomb on an unsuspecting national TV audience following Penn State's season-ending victory over Wisconsin last month. But if you thought the strangest part of the postgame celebration was the debate over whether he had called his team "a bunch of fighters" or had B instead used a word unfit for the nation's living rooms, well, you thought wrong. Following the on-field interview, shortly after O'Brien had stepped into the Beaver Stadium media room, a fan commandeered one of the microphones and hijacked the postgame presser. His gushy mono-