Change of Fortune

Gauging the success of the Penn State football program has never required a Sunday morning sports page in this part of the country. Just take a leisurely stroll across town and observe the faces in the crowd.

For many years, the mood was entirely upbeat. The Nittany Lions had only one losing season between 1939 and 2000 and were especially dominant in the 1980s and ‘90s, when they averaged 9.3 wins a season and won two national championships. Nobody was held in higher regard than the program’s architect, Joe Paterno, who began coaching here before color television was widely available.

“When the football team is winning, people are so happy,” said Russ Rose, women’s volleyball coach at Penn State the last 26 years. “Students come to class happier, the community is happier, downtown is friendlier. When we’re losing, everybody is looking at the ground and their head is down and their body language is down.”

Of course, there were generations of Nittany Lions fans who never experienced what losing looked like.

But they know now.

Penn State was 3-9 last season, its third losing record in four seasons and its worst record in Paterno’s 54 years at the school.

And suddenly the legendary and beloved “Joe-Pa,” who turned out winners and scholars and was hailed as the model for what all coaches should strive to be, is being excoriated by critics in newspaper columns, Internet chat rooms and over the radio.

A 2-1 start this season hasn’t stopped the flow of negative vibes. Penn State’s victories have come over Akron and Central Florida, which have a combined record of 0-6. Perhaps more troubling, the Nittany Lions have continued their trend of sloppy play, committing 11 turnovers in their last two games, including six by fifth-year senior quarterback Zack Mills in a 37-13 victory last week against Central Florida.

From here, though, the schedule gets tougher. On Saturday, Penn State plays its Big Ten Conference opener at No. 20 Wisconsin in the first of five games against ranked opponents who have a combined record of 13-1. The Nittany Lions have not won a conference opener since 1999 and have lost their last seven games away from home.

Largely shielded from criticism for decades by his team’s accomplishments, Paterno, 77, now finds his every move being analyzed, from play-calling to his personnel decisions.

Still, he is intent on reversing Penn State’s woes before he retires, gets fired, or is carried from the field on a stretcher, the scenario considered most likely by long-time residents of this mountainous college town.

“I know when you lose, as we lost last year, it’s not quite as fun as when you go to Rose Bowls and you’re playing for national championships,” said Paterno, whose 340 career victories are second-most by a major college football coach. “I’m not naive.”

But whether Paterno has the energy and the know-how to stop the slide is heatedly debated. Although most fans respect what the coach has done in the past, they are less than content with his performance lately.

Tony Zaccaria, 36, a construction worker who is a native of Williamsport, about 60 miles east of the university, said that after years of scrambling to purchase football tickets, he couldn’t give them away last season. He said he is among many “young Penn State fans [who] would like to see a changing of the guard.”

“A new coach would fire up the team to get it really going,” Zaccaria said.

Brian Tuchalski, a 26-year-old senior who first came to Penn State in 1997, said students didn’t have the same passion for the team as when he arrived. As part of his marketing internship over the summer, Tuchalski helped design fliers to promote a rally the night before the season opener, something the team never needed in the past.

“People aren’t excited about Penn State football,” he said. “Instead of going to the games, they would rather drink all day and watch it on TV.”

Along with the losing, several off-the-field incidents have soured some fans. In the past two years, Penn State football players have been involved in two well-publicized fights, two have been cited for underage drinking, one was arrested for criminal mischief and receiving stolen property, and another was acquitted of a sexual assault charge that led to his being temporarily expelled from school.

Mike Morlang, who works at the university’s nuclear reactor, said he believes the negative publicity from those incidents has had a direct effect on recruiting.

“They’re out of hand when they’re not on the field,” Morlang said of the players. “You never had that before.”

Paterno, who does not own a cell phone or computer, blames the information age for blowing disciplinary lapses out of proportion.

“He’s got great control of the program,” Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley said, “and always has.”

In an effort to show support for Paterno, the administration rewarded him with a four-year contract extension last spring. He will be 82 when it expires.

“From my end of it, he’s here as long as he wants to coach,” Curley said. “He has won more than his fair share of games, but he has also done it the right way. He has done so much for this university.”

Even those unhappy with the direction of the football program are quick to salute Paterno’s many contributions to football and the university.

When the NFL started the regular-season this month, there were 35 former Penn State players on opening-day rosters.

A 2003 study revealed that Nittany Lion football players were graduating at a rate higher than any other public university in the nation.

The same year, Penn State and Miami were the only schools to produce four first-round NFL draft picks.

And when it comes to fundraising, there’s no measuring stick to determine how much money Paterno’s image has generated for Penn State. His $3.5 million donation to the university in 1998 speaks of his own generosity.

Unless he has a major health setback, Paterno said he expected to remain coach for the length of his current contract. Earlier this summer, he said one of his goals was to coach the Nittany Lions to one more undefeated season this decade, something they have accomplished the last four. More recently, he stated he planned to take it one season at a time.

“I want to look at this year and I want to coach as well as I can coach and hopefully we can win some games,” he said. “I hope I have as much interest in coaching at the end of this year as I did going in.”

Paterno has delegated many of his off-the-field responsibilities to Fran Ganter, a former player and longtime assistant who stepped into a newly created administrative position in February. Ganter’s primary responsibility is handling Paterno’s schedule and representing the athletic department at selected functions. As recently as last month, Ganter represented the university at a former player’s funeral, a duty Paterno would have undertaken in the past.

Paterno said he missed having Ganter on the sideline, where they coached together for 33 years, but the new position will allow Paterno to concentrate on what he loves most, coaching.

“It has helped in a lot of ways,” Paterno said. “There’s a lot of things that used to come across my desk that would take time and agitation.”

However, Paterno’s schedule is still so busy that it prevents him from what used to be a trademark of his routine, making the 20-minute walk from his home of 40 years, a modest stone-covered single story nestled alongside a community park.

He has his critics, but after more than a half century at the university he also has a lot of friends. Every year, the list grows.

“There’s a lot of people who have gone to Penn State that I know and a lot of them are people that, every once in a while, think maybe I can help them with some particular problem,” Paterno said. “So there’s a lot more demand on my time.”

Those who have worked alongside him are not surprised Paterno is doing what it takes to remain in coaching, whether it’s eliminating his morning walk or delegating administrative duties.

“He loves coaching, he has a lot of enthusiasm for it, he’s just very full of energy, his health is good, so why not?” former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky said.

For some Penn State fans, that’s a painful question.