I can’t think of a better way to excite a new audience or fanbase than by leading with a child sexual abuse scandal. The opportunity is irresistable really. I’m choosing to go this route. Pat Chambers had no such luck.
Just in case the prospect of rebuilding the Penn State basketball program wasn’t daunting enough, last week happened.
Forget the student riots, protests or demonstrations of Wednesday night. Those are common in State College; the town is practically designed to encourage such activity. The real impact and trauma of last week will be felt in a thousand small and not-so-small ways for months throughout the small borough in rural Pennsylvania. Some college students talk about campus as being a bubble, protected and apart from the outside world. The entire community felt that way about State College, PA until last week.
This much is undeniable: change is coming. But maybe, just maybe, that change also involves basketball. If someone not named Joe Paterno can coach the local football team, then anything is possible.
Following the horrific revelations and accusations brought forth so far by the Sandusky investigation, the Penn State administration cleaned house. Paterno is gone. University President Graham Spanier is gone. An orthopedic surgeon is now acting as athletic director. A surgeon actually is probably appropriate in this case given the trauma involved. The air and culture around the Penn State sports offices has changed. It will continue to change. Anytime a central, all-powerful figure is removed (JoePa, the Pope, et al.), it follows through the natural course of things that power and influence disperses. That’s why we have term limits on political offices, so power can’t be consolidated to a dangerous level. Football cannot, will not, be allowed such unilateral control and dominance.
State College has two things that should translate into a college hoops hotbed: a rabid, captive fan base and a long winter. Yet basketball success has been limited in Happy Valley. The team’s home, the Bryce Jordan Center, while big and modern, throws too many fans too close to the rafters. The Nittany Lions haven’t won a conference championship since a lone Atlantic 10 title in 1991. NCAA Tournament runs have been nearly as scarce. I’d need a whole other blog to get into all of the nuances and reasoning as to why Penn State basketball has been quite literally cast into the shadows of King Football.
Eight-year basketball coach Ed DeChellis got a head start on the house clearing and left his alma mater last spring, jumping ship to Navy. (Pun intended. And it most assuredly won’t be the last.) Gone also are four senior starters, including centerpiece Talor Battle, from the first Nittany Lion team to make the NCAA Tournament since 2001. Battle and those seniors were also at the heart of Penn State’s NIT title team two years prior. And perhaps you heard about the team getting kicked out of its own arena for a week last winter–having to practice in the school’s intramural building on makeshift hoops–in order to let Bon Jovi practice for a new tour?
Enter new coach Pat Chambers.
Chambers, who arrives in State College and back in his native Pennsylvania after two seasons at Boston University, has a rare chance to re-establish (or just establish for the first time?) basketball’s place within the athletic department during a period in which the priorities and practices throughout the whole university are being questioned. The gleam is off the football. What’s more, he takes over at a time when the Penn State community needs to gather and grieve and remember that not everything in town is poison. Not that basketball will supplant football on campus or with the fans anytime soon, but the window is open for the voracious appetite of Penn State fans to be fed by something other than football.
Penn State is off to a solid start with three warm-up wins over Hartford, Radford and Long Island, with a showdown against Kentucky looming Saturday. While their offensive efficiency has crept up with each contest, topping out at 116 against LIU, this is still a young team that needs time to mature and develop before statistical measures can be taken with anything other than a boulder-sized grain of salt. Chambers’ BU team ground out 63 possessions a game last season, so don’t expect the Nittany Lions to turn into a high flying circus. The fans don’t need that. The fans need a likeable team they can get behind and that can win a few games. Junior guard Tim Frazier needs to become the face of this new team and help Chambers usher in the new era. He’s off to a pretty good start, averaging over 20 pts. and 8 assists per game.
This season will have some lumps for Penn State- with the scandal off the court and six freshmen on it. Out of trial and adversity, however, can a new and stronger whole be formed. Penn State revelled in being able to take the high road, to be the moral compass in collegiate sports. The mighty have fallen now. It’s time for a new voice and a new face at Penn State.
Pat Chambers is ready. He’s excited. He’s in charge. He’s wearing blue sneakers to remember the victims.
