Penn State wrestling play by play announcer Jeff Byers has written another excellent piece on Statecollege.com. The Iowa Hawkeyes wrestling team returns to Rec Hall again this Sunday, and Jeff talks about our collective anticipation and compares it to last year, a 22-13 Hawkeye victory.

Last year’s meeting with the Hawkeyes was the most anticipated dual of the season. Penn State had vaulted to the top of the coaches’ poll, had a capacity crowd at Rec Hall and was primed for a big win over the three-time defending national champions. Fans were anticipating a big, signature home victory. Then the Hawkeyes took the mat and Tony Ramos upset Andrew Long at 133 pounds. Montell Marion fought off of his back and rallied to beat Andrew Alton and Grant Gambrall knocked off Quentin Wright. When the dust had settled, Penn State was again looking up at its Big Ten rivals.

He goes on to note that the sting of that loss was eventually lessened as Penn State went on to win the Big Ten & National Championships. But as he remembers how disappointing the dual loss was at the time, he guesses that the memory of it won't do anything to diminish the anticipation of this year's match:

Not that that will stop fans, and a certain radio broadcaster, from getting emotionally invested in great expectations again this time around. If anything, the anticipation is even higher this year. Now, we’re really anticipating a big win - this time the Nittany Lions are third in the coaches’ poll and the Hawkeyes are one spot higher. Iowa has reeled off a remarkable 39 consecutive dual meet victories and 50 straight road wins. The anticipation of watching the beloved Nittany Lions flex their muscle in snapping those streaks is almost too much to bear. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision the Rec Hall roars, the fists thrust in the air of the victorious Lions and the smiles and hugs all around when - if - Penn State gets the win it seeks this time.

With a brief trip down memory lane and while sounding a little wistful if not poetic, Byers finishes with the possibility that some of our current wrestlers may one day sit so highly in our memories:

When you look at the pictures of Penn State’s history, you can hear the thunderous applause as Mike Reid was carried out of the gym after the big win over Lehigh. You can see the effortless shots of Andy Matter. You can feel the electricity as Penn State upset the Gable-led, veteran Hawkeyes. And for all of the great moments you see and hear and read about, you realize that you are anticipating moments that rival the very best in the history of the program. This is a team that could very well be filled with athletes who will take on legendary status some day. Of course, legends leave their imprints on history when the opportunities present themselves.

It's a great read. Go Lions!

Jeff Byers is the excellent play-by-play analyst for Penn State wrestling radio broadcasts. He's very, very good at that job. He also grew up in State College in the same neighborhood as Jerry Sandusky and his family. In this StateCollege.com article, he reflects on his own childhood there, talks about his friendships with the Sandusky children, E.J., Kara, and Jon, and discusses his memories of the Sandusky household. Generally, he just tries to express some of his thoughts and emotions. It's not all that dissimilar to what a lot of us have been trying to do during reflection of these events, but it's an interesting take on the inherent conflict those who knew Sandusky one way must now be experiencing as they learn of others who knew him differently.

I don't want to filter the piece's goodness by over-presenting portions of it, but these words toward the end contain a few of the many complexities involved:

I am proud of the way the Sanduskys are dealing with unimaginable circumstances, of how the university and community have responded to help the survivors of child abuse, of the neighborhood I grew up in and the memories I get to keep. I also am proud of the alleged victims for telling their stories and surviving and bringing the reality of their situations to light.

It is terribly important and my heart aches.

Brian Cook is widely regarded as one of the top contributors in the blogistan. If one is able & interested enough to get around his Michigan Man edges, one can get a lot out of his abundant offerings. I'm wondering if now might be such a time?

Cook on January 11, 2011:

This is a stupid hire. It will always be as stupid hire and David Brandon just led the worst coaching search in the history of Michigan football. He managed to chase off half of an already iffy recruiting class, hired a Plan C coach on January 11th, probably ensured the transfer of the reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, and restricted his "national search" to people who'd spent at least five years in Ann Arbor. Michigan just gave themselves a year of USC-level scholarship reduction voluntarily.

Funny the similarities and opposites to the PSU search in that paragraph. I'm not quite sure how you would finish the sentence: 'Joyner/Lubert restricted their national search to people who'd....'

Anyway, a lot has happened for the Michigan program between then and this week, namely an 11-2 season and a Sugar Bowl victory, but here is Cook on January 4th, 2012:

I'm thinking of Martin and Koger and Hemingway and Molk and Van Bergen and how there is no thought of what could have been, no thought of opportunities missed or goals fallen short of. Just that they stayed, and they made a BCS bowl, and they were champions of it. In the end, the seniors of Team 132 got what they came for. Now they will break the last link on the chain and tell those who follow they can make it anew.

Anyway...

Individual titles go so far in team wrestling tournaments. Penn State sent 6 wrestlers to the finals in 5 weight classes (Ed Ruth's backup, Matt Brown, bested the rest of the field at 174 to advance to the finals) and when all was said and done, they crowned 4 individual champions. Second place Minnesota, who beat us in the Big Ten dual meet last month, earned titles in 3 of the 5 weights in which they had finals participants. Final team scores:

Penn State entered 15 wrestlers in the tournament and placed 11 of them in the top 8. Final scoring breakdowns per wrestler here.

Four champs: Molinaro, Taylor, Ruth & Wright (all four capable of doing the same at B1Gs or Nationals, albeit in much stronger fields)

Two 2nds: Brown & Alton (both showed they could contend for placing at B1Gs or AA'ing at Nationals)

Two 4ths: Wade & Megaludis (I'm not sure what these efforts taught us about their potentials in March)

Two 6ths: McIntosh & Vollrath (Vollrath, like Brown, continues to show the quality depth PSU has in the room and McIntosh got pretty ripped off in the consi semis vs. a top-5 guy)

One 8th: Gingrich (this is the kind of experience we need to develop at HWT, as Cam Wade graduates later this year)

Remaining questions include 133, where we sadly did not get to see TRSO Frankie Martellotti return to the mat and 141, where JR Bryan Pearsall went 3-2, but fizzled out in grand fashion in the R12. The departure of Sam Sherlock from the program this past week assures the starting job is Pearsall's, so we'll hope to see him continue to gain experience and hope he can score some for us in March. Beyond those two questions, the other story for Penn State was the Bonus Point scoring. PSU finished with 50.5 from their starters/scorers (and had an additional 10 Bonus Points from their non-scorers). This is a very nice showing in that department, because the fields get much more difficult in March when Iowa and then Oklahoma State enter the tournaments. Still, this was a very nice tourney for our lads and it gives us plenty to look forward to these next two months.

*I don't have an email for Galen, but would imagine he'll be back on the case for upcoming duals. (I hope these updates were ok, Galen)

Continue reading this post »

Pederasty is awful. That may go without saying, but we've seen a few dangers of going without saying this past week. It's down among the lowest of our possible human behaviors, damages countless lives for years after its acts and is immensely challenging to our society's structures and our personal human reactions to it. It's awful. I've spent the past week intermittently weeping, playing with my children, hugging my family and trying, trying to figure out some things I can do about this going forward. At the moment, I haven't gotten very far, but today I stumbled across this TED talk I thought might be an interesting (if not directly helpful) sidebar to a few of the attendant issues in this pederasty scandal.

It's by a professor at Claremont Graduate University named Paul Zak, whose bio describes him as a 'pioneer in a new field called neuroeconomics.' He's been researching a human protein-like molecule called oxytocin. In his talk, he walks through a few of his team's experiments and their conclusions that this molecule is closely correlated to trust, empathy & morality decisions, and that it can be raised and lowered with a few simple behaviors. Here is the 16-minute video, and I've got a few crude notes after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Well now. Raise your hand if that tasted better than a Baby's strawberry milkshake. It's nice to remember how fun classic Big Ten Football can be. Equal parts nailbiting, preposterous luckiness, tough physical play by both teams on both sides of the ball, coaching sometimes way outside historical comfort zones--by both staffs, low-scoring with the end in doubt until a final, uber-manly fourth-quarter scoring drive by the winning team. Kudos to the lads followed by our Gold-Pants-ed friends for fighting hard throughout. On this day and contrary to recent history between these two teams, it turned out that they were the ones just slightly overmatched in the end, and they were unable to continue the awful win streak against our Nittany Lions. 

Browsing through the stat sheet is really fun this morning. Iowa came in with a brand new passing attack, a new strong-armed QB and one of their better WR trios in some time. Meanwhile, and unnervingly familiarly, Penn State came in with a clusterfuck and a track record of red zone chokes. And yet, our QBs completed 15 passes (on 26 attempts, for 58%) and theirs completed 17 (on 34, for 50%). The two offenses differed in other important categories (Iowa 2 INTs, 0 TDs; PSU 1 INT, 1 TD), but the running stats provided the starkest difference. The Penn State O-line was finally able to assert some willpower against a vulnerable run defense and rang up 231 rushing yards on 46 carries, while the defense remained stalwart in holding Iowa's Marcus Coker to a net 74 yards on 18 carries. What the defense did to Iowa's QB, tho, is what prompted me to post today. I'm having trouble deciding what my favorite part of the stat sheet is and I thought my BSD brethren & sistren might have a little fun helping me out.

Continue reading this post »

We're about a month away from the start of the wrestling season, where we'll get to see Penn State try to defend their Big Ten & National Championships against a much stronger 2011-2012 field. Win Magazine took a look at the culture of wrestling in the state of Pennsylvania and makes a loose case that the arrival of Cael Sanderson to the Head Coach position of the state's premier collegiate wrestling team has changed the goal mindsets of its High School wrestlers:

“High school wrestlers in Pennsylvania haven’t really had their eyes on college,” PA wrestling insider Corey Haddad said. “Their penultimate goal has always been gold in Hershey (site of the PIAA state tournament). Cael has quickly changed that. He re-energized kids to not only wrestle, but to be successful in post-secondary school. Now more than ever, kids want opportunities to compete in college.”

It's a short article, packed with .... not much beyond the assertion, but it could be a fun topic to consider for Pennsylvania wrestling fans.

So I've been an avid and happy user of Delicious.com over the past, I dunno 5-7 years maybe? And today was the first day of their takeover by Yahoo, and the import of all my old bookmarks, notes & tags into their new 'streamlined' code has so jacked up my links I can no longer use them. More than half my tags are missing and the new code is not yet ready to do simple tasks like alphabetical sorts or edits/deletes.  It allowed me an export to an html file, so I may be able to import them all into some new service, but won't have any idea how much data came with the export until I do so. I'm wondering if any of my BSD friends could help out with any recommendations for an online bookmarking service. Do any of you use Reddit, Digg, Diigo, Onlywire or others?

My requirements are pretty simple: must be free (duh) and I want the bookmarks stored online, on the service's site. I use three browsers regularly so don't want to hassle with 'syncing' if the bookmarks are browser-stored. If I go to IndoChina, I want to be able to be able to access my links from a bowl of rice. Would prefer the service have a bookmarklet/applet buttons for tagging which I can store in my browsers' existing toolbars, instead of requiring a whole new toolbar, like Google's does (don't want to use its service also b/c I already juggle too many google accts and don't want to worry about which one I'm logged into). I don't have a big requirement for social sharing of bookmarks, but I realize most are doing this, so it's cool. Also don't have a requirement for auto-publishing to other social networking sites, but realize some are doing that.

While I'm an experienced surfer/googler, I'm looking for personal experience tales from you. What do you use? Thanks in advance!

Here's an interview with Penn State wrestler James English, who is in the middle of a mat room battle royale with Dylan Alton & James Vollrath for the 157 pound starting position. He talks about the frustrations of not starting when he believes he could have been an All-American at Frank Molinaro's 149 pound weight last year, but also explains why that competition is the very reason he chose Penn State. He has some nice input into the different training styles of former Coach Troy Sunderland, who recruited him, and current coach Cael Sanderson and he, of course, also talks about how much fun he's having. Enjoy:

Via

Lots to talk about. First, apologies for not posting some wrestling stuff earlier. It's a remarkable phenomenon when one is finally able to soften one's personal obsession; all sorts of new avenues suddenly appear ;)  And I'm super-slammed, so this will be fast and link dumpy. Ok? Go!

First, Fargo. The wrestling tournament. It's a huge national prep tournament for Freestyle and Greco-Roman and Penn State incoming freshman and number one recruit last year, Morgan McIntosh wrapped up a stellar HS career with another freestyle championship. At 215 pounds! This is notable because he won at Fargo last year and won 2 of his 3 California state championships at 189 pounds, but, and this should be fun to discuss in the comments, wanted to wrestle up:

"I want to get used to wrestling, bigger, stronger guys," said McIntosh, who was named the 2011 InterMat High School Wrestler of the Year. "It's a big difference going from 189s to 215s. A lot of these guys were 10, 15 pounds bigger than me, so I think it's a good experience being able to wrestle all these strong guys."

It's no secret Penn State struggled at 197 pounds last year and, if McIntosh redshirts and Quentin Wright and Ed Ruth remain at last year's weights of 184 & 174, would do so again this year. With Iowa and Oklahoma State reloading this year, many pundits believe it will be important for McIntosh to hold off his redshirt and jump right in, ala Andrew Alton last year. What do you think?

Continue reading this post »

As a longtime (and vocal) member of the Black Shoe Diaries community, I wanted to take a moment to welcome all the new administrators and contributors. The transition looks like it's moving along smoothly, and it sounds like there will be heaps to be excited about in the future. Kevin was kind enough to invite me to reach out to Chris if I was interested in continuing to contribute to the front page, but I haven't, and here's why: blogging is really hard.

And I'm not particularly good at it.

When Kevin & Chris left BSD last summer, Mike hung out a shingle and I answered his ad. I figured he was in a hole, he had done a lot for me in building this place I liked to spend so much time in, and I might be able to help him out a little with some backyard analysis & commentary. And even tho I knew enough about myself to commit to simply one post a week, I was a blogging virgin and had paid little blogging dues beyond being active in the commentariat (but I agree with Munny & Snoop that 'deserve's got nothin to do with it', and getting front page keys to the BSD Ferrari was an opportunity, so I took it). I had no idea the struggles involved in the regular production of content. Watching Fugi & Ben's daily work ethic and listening to Mike's experienced advice was impressive: it was awesome to see behind the scenes what it takes to keep a top blog running and growing. It also gave me even more respect for the great work on other blogs (Ross's work at the Pants comes to mind: the volume and writing excellence is trippy). And on the personal level, you've got a lot more vying for your attention. Every morning I'd check my phone and three primary apps: my BSD-specific email, my now-pimped-out Google Reader and the Twitter. That's in addition to my old obsessions of checking the comments for fun stuff to discuss with you fine people. Oh, and trying to become a better writer all the while. So, yeah, even at a post a week, it's a time suck.

So this decision to ramp up the latest generation of BSD with a large staff (tee hee hee) is a smart one. I'm not familiar enough with the LBU guys to comment on all their writing and I've never interacted with Pettigano before, but anybody who's peeked in over there the last six months or so can tell he's one committed dude. The style and content makeovers have been impressive, and timely. They've hit the gym just as Mike was winding down. I've read a few of Junstrom's articles over there and you can tell how much his writing has improved in the past year, and Collyer is one of my new favorite voices in the PSU sphere. Kevin's always seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and I would bet we can trust him to guide the BSD business growth in a way that remains also favorable to the readership. SBN seems to be pretty good at that at large. Chris and I have disagreed a fair bit over the years, but he's made it clear that he can be trusted to allow for that. He may not be forty yet, but he's a man and by all accounts a man of class, and I think we're all excited to see a return of that fun wit and style. He's also really experienced at this bloggery thing and he'll be a great steward of the content ship.

For my part I plan to get back to life a bit, focus a little more on work and house projects (where BSD has cut most into my time--the fam's been great!) and, like Mike, hope to put up a fanpost now and again. You may see me round the twitters and some in the comments here, and I'll probably stalk some of you at some tailgates this fall (first stop: DerryPharmer).

I know there's a lot yet to learn about all the new staff, and probably plenty for them to learn as they go forward, but, to me, it looks like we're in very capable and entertaining hands. I hope you all will join me in welcoming them on these latest endeavors. Good luck, BSD!

'All characterizations are fair game in Blogistan' is a phrase I've grown fond of saying as a reminder of our medium and purpose here; that medium being language and that purpose being storytelling. As fans of our teams and armed with keyboards and a vast interconnected network, we take to writing stories that convey the characterizations we are trying to advance. While many of those characterizations fall along partisan team-supported lines, anybody experienced enough with the dichotomies and shizophrenias of the Penn State fanbase can tell you they sometimes also come down very hard on the home team. Which is fine. In an era of sports fanaticism where there's such facility for both the opinionated and their audiences to share and digest, it's natural for disagreements to oppose groupthink (something I hope we continue to see welcomed, respectfully, here at BSD). But it's the storytelling aspect that I've been fascinated by lately. You've got a point of view you'd like to convey, you dig in to your bag of words and begin painting your picture.

Continue reading this post »

The Columbus Dispatch has obtained a copy of Ohio State's response to the NCAA. Punishment Ohio State did self-impose: vacated 2010 wins and placed the football team on a two-year probation. The article does not spell out exactly what either of those functionally mean, if anything. Punishment Ohio State did not self-impose: loss of scholarships and a post-season ban. Predictably, Ohio State continues to operate from behind their stellar web of plausible deniability and have fully scapegoated Jim Tressel as the lone outlier:

"The responsibility is upon Tressel. No other institutional personnel were aware" of the violations, and the former coach failed in his obligation to report them, the response says. "The institution is embarrassed by the actions of Tressel."

The Dispatch article doesn't provide a link to the full response, so only a few quotable tidbits are available, but here is another:

The university concedes it is a "repeat violator" of NCAA regulations but contends that its "corrective and punitive actions are appropriate" and asks that the football program be spared additional punishment. OSU also reported that it sought the resignation of Tressel, who departed on May 30. Until athletic director Gene Smith acknowledged that fact yesterday, Ohio State officials had repeatedly said that Tressel was not forced out.

A quick timeline review of the violations process:

• 4/25/11: NCAA delivers Notice of Allegations
• 7/8/11: Ohio State delivers its 'response' for the NCAA to consider
• 8/12/11: Ohio State to appear before the NCAA's Committee on Infractions

Up next for the rest of us in the popcorn.gif: watch to see if the NCAA agrees that these 'punishments' are sufficient.

*UPDATE: Doc Sat's Graham Watson on the curious case of Gene Smith vis a vis Tressel's support and resignation.

BSD is chronicling 15 of Penn State's best games since joining the Big Ten in 1993. For more on the series, click here. Today, Jtothep & Lou Prato talk about Penn State's blowout victory against Arizona in 1999.

With the Outback Bowl victory over Kentucky on January 1, Penn State wrapped up the 1998 season at 9-3. It was a decent finish for the young squad, which dropped games to #1 Ohio State, #22 Michigan and #13 Wisconsin, good for 4th place behind those three. In point of fact it was about par for the course in Penn State's 6-year history in the Big Ten, during which they went 36-12 and finished 3rd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd and 4th. In those first six years, they dropped four games to Ohio State, three to Michigan, two to Wisconsin and one each to Northwestern, Iowa and Michigan State. In short, Penn State competed, but was pretty damn far away from dominating.

1999 was a weird year. Like, for all of us. With the Millennium approaching, many of us were very interested in partying like it was 1999, even if we could no longer pronounce 's name. Y2K was a real software problem at the time, although many countries were able to successfully address it. The internet had picked up quite a bit since Al Gore invented it earlier that decade, email was becoming more widespread, networking companies were working feverishly to lay more pipe (weren't we all?) and Silicon Valley was booming with spectacular failures and legitimate successes. But broadband availability was not yet widespread and Blogistan was still in its infancy.

In the college football arena, Tee Martin had just led Tennessee to the inaugural BCS MNC over one of the last of Bobby Bowden's great Florida State teams (which won the MNC the following year), Jim Tressel was visiting sick children in Youngstown and Ted Sarniak was befriending a then 10-year-old Terrelle Pryor.  But at home in State College, things were looking interesting. Penn State was returning a number of talented players, including almost their entire defense, a senior quarterback, three fifths of their offensive line (which still ended up with position juggles, natch), one very fine receiver, and a stable of running backs. And when it was announced in January that they would host the Arizona Wildcats that August in the Pigskin Classic, things got very interesting indeed.

Continue reading this post »

Hi all! I'm gearing up to take my boys to a football game this fall and was wondering what your experience with taking children into Beaver Stadium has been like. I have a lot of personal memories of going to games as a child, but certainly none of them are from when I was 18mos old, like my lads will be this fall. So I get that they won't 'remember' their first game and, as such, a case can be made that the experience will largely be for me and for my memories. But I also expect that they will be full of wonder at the event, the people and the size of the stadium. We plan to take them all the way to our seats for however long they last and to do plenty of walking around (I'm thinking the ramps will be fun for them) and plenty of carrying them on our shoulders, so I'm guessing our expectations are fairly realistic. Can you share what your experiences have been and with children of what age?

I'm also very curious if any of you have managed to carry a child past the ticket scanners without having to burn a game ticket on them. I'm mostly emotionally prepared to drop a game ticket (and $110) for each of them for the experience, but, as you might guess, I'd be very, very interested in hearing any tales of sneaky avoidance of such a fee. I also really love storytelling, so please go wild in this department if you are so inclined. Thanks in advance. We are!

Penn State Head Coach Cael Sanderson won the 84kg/185lb weight class and earned a spot on the U.S. World Team for this September's World Championships in Turkey. Wresfan will be around early this week with analysis, but for tonight we can turn to our friends at flowrestling.org, who covered the event and captured video of the action. They have also graciously provided the embed code, so we can see a few of our Nittany Lion Wrestling Club friends in action here.

84kg/185lbs

Sanderson defeated U.S. Open champion, Jake Herbert, in two decisive wins:

Continue reading this post »

The Nittany Lion Wrestling Club has a number of competitors at this weekend's World Team Trials, a tournament to see who will earn the right to compete for the U.S. in the World Championships in Turkey this September. All of the NLWC's wrestlers are competing in Men's Freestyle, so we're holding off on Greco-Roman and Women's Freestyle updates. Last night's champions include:

60kg/132lbs

Reece Humphrey defeated Shawn Bunch, but hasn't yet earned a spot on the U.S. World Team. Bunch won an international event earlier this year, so they will both be entered in an international event in July and the highest finisher will earn the spot.

74kg/163lbs

Jordan Burroughs defeated Andrew Howe again and seems ready for a nice run heading into the Olympics next year. Intermat asked him about his mindset heading into his first World Championships:

"Keep winning," said Burroughs. "When I enter any tournament, that's what I do ... I go to win, no matter what I'm doing. I'm a competitor and that's what I love to do is win. I've been doing this for a long time. This is my craft. This is my sport. This is my lifestyle."

96kg/211.5lbs

NLWC's Jake Varner beat surprise finalist Chad Hanke. From the Intermat article:

"I went out there, wrestled my match, felt really good, and stuck to my plan," said Varner. Varner has trained under Penn State coach Cael Sanderson for most of his college and post-college career, first at Iowa State and now with the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. "He's a big reason why I'm at where I am today," said Varner, a two-time NCAA champion and four-time NCAA finalist at Iowa State.

And speaking of Cael Sanderson, the brackets for the four remaining weight classes are up (and Challenge Tourney matches underway) and Sanderson and Quentin Wright are on opposite sides, such that they wouldn't possibly meet unless both made it to the final. I linked to brackets hosted at trackwrestling.com. Intermat also has live TheMat.tv video feeds that actually don't suck too bad. Check it out.

Continue reading this post »

Penn State head wrestling coach Cael Sanderson was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening. He received his plaque from Bobby Douglas, Sanderson's legendary coach at Iowa State. Sanderson's wife, Kelly, posted a pic of the plaque presentation here. The NWHOF calls its honorees 'Distinguished Members' and TheMat.com has a list of all them since the charter class of 1976. USA Wrestling's Jason Bryant caught up with Sanderson for an interview in what looks to be some kind of  Elk Lodge in Stillwater, OK. I like how he started in on saying that Penn State winning nationals this year gave him a 'little bit of a cushion' to go ahead and begin competing personally again, but recognized he 'couldn't really explain it' like that and just finished with: 'all I know is I really wanna do it.'

A few World Team Trials updates after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

When Penn State Head Wrestling Coach Cael Sanderson competed at the Northeast Regional shortly after leading the Nittany Lions to the National Championship this Spring, it was assumed to be a one-time thing--a payoff of a friendly bet with his team. At the time, he said it was 'just for fun.' Yesterday Intermat confirmed what Flowrestling reported on Sunday (h/t to OlderBudweiser in the fanshots): that Sanderson will be competing again, this time in the World Team Trials in Oklahoma City this weekend. The World Team Trials is an awesome collection of national champions, Olympians and World medalists competing for the right to represent the United States at the 2011 World Championships in Istanbul this September.

The WTT is set up as a small challenge tournament on Saturday morning, with the winner advancing to face the champion of the U.S. Open in a best-of-three finals on Saturday night. Sanderson is competing in a loaded 84kg (185.5lb) weight class that includes the top 6 finishers from April's U.S. Open in Cleveland (runner-up and 2008 Pitt national champion Keith Gavin, 4th place finisher and 2010 Missouri national champion Max Askren, to name a few) and 2011 174-pound Iowa State national champion Jon Reader. Oh, it also includes Penn State's 2011 184-pound champion, Quentin Wright.

Continue reading this post »

On Tuesday, after taking a much-needed break from uber-busy-ness and dipping into the warm, fuzzy, familiar confines of the BSD commentariat, I got typically carried away and wrote this:

I don’t see any reason why Devon Still can’t be as good as Jared Odrick was his senior year.

Now, note I chose my words carefully and included plenty of linguistic qualifiers, but still: that's a pretty high bar. Jared Odrick was named by opposing coaches as the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year the same year Brandon Graham, Ryan Kerrigan, O'Brien Schofield and 2009 Adrian Clayborn were terrorizing offenses from defensive line positions. Is it out of the question for Devon Still to reach that kind of company?

Continue reading this post »

It's been over three weeks since the Nittany Lions brought home the 2011 National Championship, and there's a lot of coverage we let slip through the cracks. And with half our BSD team tied up in this year's WAPS mag, the Step Up series fizzling to a cold hard stop and most of our Blue White Game thoughts scheduled to run later this week, we thought we'd take a rainy Tuesday afternoon to take a look back at some wrestling links. Some are a little old, so apologies if you've already peeped them. First up is this 3/25/11 letter from assistant coach Casey Cunningham. He covers a lot of ground, but starts out with some mad kudos to departing Senior Brad Pataky:

I have to take a minute to briefly talk about Brad.  Brad is a great kid with a lot of heart which he poured into this program for six years.  He was badly injured before the season even started but he came through big when we needed his points.  Without Brad's points at the Big Ten Tournament we would not have won.  I am not sure how much I am allowed to comment on his injury but it was serious enough that most people would have had surgery and been done for the year, which he did this morning at 7:30am.  That is not Brad though he was not going to finish his senior year sitting on the side watching so we are very proud of him.

He then goes on to talk about the Big Ten Championship and the importance of contributions from Pataky, Andrew Alton and James Vollrath, and of course has high praises for the big scorers at nationals. He also lays out some of the impressiveness of Coach Cael Sanderson's young five-year coaching career:

I have heard several times that Cael finally got a team title but he has only been a head coach for five years and it is pretty remarkable what he has accomplished in that time.  His teams have finished 2nd, 5th, 3rd, 9th, and 1st   in the Nation.  He has won his respective conference four of the five years he has coached with last year being the exception.  His ISU teams won three Big Twelve titles which were all a first in school history since joining the conference.  This year's Penn State team won the Big Ten Title for the first time in school history.  In five years he has had 44 of a possible 50 NCAA qualifiers.  Cael has coached 3 National Champions, 9 NCAA finalists, and 23 All-Americans in five years.  He has been named National Coach of the year, Big Twelve coach of the year, and Big Ten coach of the year in his short career.

Continue reading this post »

This week we used the word polarizing in describing a stereotypical type of Penn State football player that Drew Astorino could be said to represent, but there is perhaps no figure more polarizing in the history of Penn State football than erstwhile Quarterbacks Coach, Jay Paterno. Employed as the son of a coaching legend and the person held most responsible for the development of QB14, Jay has heard more than his share of criticism. He's a high-profile figure in a high-profile position and his journey from nepotistic grad assistant has been more than a little fascinating. Here at BSD, Jay was called out in June of 2008 for his dabbling in politics and in January of last year was covered for grooming his growing personality. Most fans would acknowledge his savvy in the tech arena and, given that and his history of criticism, it's not too surprising that he does not have a Wikipedia page. But he has also has been penning the occasional column for statecollege.com and his recent offerings have been pretty fairly received as, at the very least, largely thoughtful. Today's column is no exception, as JayPa digs in for a proscriptive and predictive hypothetical depiction of a growing movement he feels is a threat to our favorite sport: offseason 7-on-7 teams.

Continue reading this post »

/looks around surreptitiously....Are we in the clear? Did that nasty Injury Jinx blow on by? Are we continuing to play with the proverbial fire? Would a real fire be a deterrent for Injury Jinxes? Or, did I just double jinx us into some new affliction to our football team? Hey, speaking of fire, did you see this tee hee funny on twitter the other day?: 'I bet the firemen in alarms 2 through 5 are all pissed that they had to get all dressed up and get in the truck for some chili.'

Aaaaannnnyway, let's get on with it and talk about this observer's prediction for a defensive team captain: Drew Astorino. If Michael Mauti is one of our favorite kinds of Penn State football players (a legacy talent whose father also played for Joe Paterno), then Drew Astorino could be described as one of the more polarizing kinds of Penn State football players: an undersized, flat of foot defensive player who impresses coaches with sure tackling, appears in a high number of defensive snaps and who may or may not be of Eyetalian descent. These players have been a staple of Paterno-led teams and have occasionally been the source or subject of much angst among our plenty-polarized fanbase. Most fans these past few years, however, have given Drew more than a fair shake, especially in light of his relatively solid play while playing through injuries the past two seasons.

Continue reading this post »

/wades softly into the dangerous waters of these posts....

Ok, so BSD doesn't have such a good track record so far with this spring practice series. We've already taken out Brandon Ware and Curtis Drake directly, and even spooked poor Pete Massaro just by writing that Jack Crawford needs to step up, but this week we're narrowly avoiding the spiteful injury gods (knock on wood or anything else you do to dodge jinxes). So far, Justin Brown, Kevin Haplea and Garry Gilliam have ducked the wrath, so your intrepid authors push on, with .... RSJR Linebacker Michael Mauti.

Michael Mauti is one of our favorite kinds of Penn State football players: a legacy talent whose father also played for Joe Paterno. Rich Mauti was a wide receiver on the middle seventies teams which were between national championship runs and played pro ball for the Saints and the Skins before moving to Louisiana and becoming a real estate broker. Michael was a 4-star recruit there, with offers from Oklahoma and Arkansas among others, but knew all along he wanted to play for Linebacker U, and he enrolled at Penn State in January of 2008.  Although Coach Scrap had him playing safety in the Blue White Game that year, he was back at LB in August and appeared to be one of a very few true freshmen ready enough to make a contribution on the field that year.

Continue reading this post »

This version could also be called Time to Step Up: Dick Anderson or Time to Step Up: Bill Kenney (raise your hand if you remember which of our offensive line coaches coach which positions)(I'm kidding, put your hand down), because there are very few accounts of Johnnie Troutman which do not mention his natural talent. I've long asserted he is a next-level talent, but nobody in his or her right mind would go so far as to say his career has been dominant. More accurately, his career has been littered with question marks, perhaps the most important of which has been about his motivation. And that's a challenge for the coaches, Joe Paterno included.

Continue reading this post »