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No college football program has ever had to deal with the obstacles, hostility, and challenges encountered by the players and coaches of the 2012 Penn State Nittany Lions, and this book is an account of that unforgettable season in which the team rebounded from a disillusioning 0-2 start to surprise everyone and finish with an 8-4 record, third best in the Big Ten Conference. The turmoil at Penn State began in early November 2011 with the shocking arrest of retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky for multiple charges of sexual child abuse, and within days legendary head coach Joe Paterno was fired in what would be termed the biggest scandal in college football history. By the end of January, Paterno was dead from lung cancer and a new head coach without any Penn State connections, Bill O’Brien, began putting together his staff while finishing up his job as offensive coordinator of the Super Bowl bound New England Patriots. We Are Penn State tells the story of how this team overcame unprecedented NCAA sanctions, including a four-year bowl ban and the loss of 45 scholarships over the same period, the transfer of several of its star players, and overwhelming predictions that the 2012 season would be a disaster to put together a successful season and restore some dignity to what was once considered one of the elite programs in college football.
Perfect for Penn State fans who think they already know everything With traditions, records, and Nittany Lions lore, this lively, detailed book explores the personalities, events, and facts every Penn State fan should know. It contains crucial information such as important dates, player nicknames, memorable moments, and outstanding achievements by singular players. From trivia on legendary players—such as John Cappelletti, Kerry Collins, Larry Johnson, LaVar Arrington, and Paul Posluszny—to knowing the best places to catch a game, 100 Things Penn State Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource guide for true fans of the Nittany Lions.
Adam Taliaferro had it all: smarts, an easy-going personality, and incomparable athletic ability. None of that seemed to matter, however, on that fateful September day when his father was given startling news: Do not expect your son to walk. Ever. Since that numbing day, Taliaferro, the Penn State freshman cornerback who was paralyzed after he tackled an Ohio State running back, has defied the odds. Before he had spinal-fusion surgery, he made a vow to his mother: "Mom, I'm not going out like this." Three months later, he walked out of a Philadelphia hospital on crutches, determined to complete his amazing recovery, making the name "Adam Taliaferro" synonymous with courage and perseverance.
The 1982 Penn State national championship team was not only one of Joe Paterno’s best, it was one of the best teams college football has ever seen. In When the Lions Roared, Bill Contz, one of the squad's offensive tackles, details that special season and the experience of playing for a legendary coach. Featuring dozens of interviews with former players, this book provides anecdotes from the epic contests of that season while also proving statistically why this Nittany Lions team stands up against all of the talented teams that came before and after. Also featuring a foreword and reflections by Todd Blackledge, Penn State's 1982 starting quarterback, this is an essential read for Nittany Lions faithful.
From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.
An iconoclast and best-selling author of both nonfiction and fiction, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has spent a lifetime observing, thinking, and writing about the cultures of animals such as lions, wolves, dogs, deer, and humans. In this compulsively readable book, she provides a plainspoken, big-picture look at the commonality of life on our planet, from the littlest microbes to the largest lizards. Inspired by the idea of symbiosis in evolution—that all living things evolve in a series of cooperative relationships—Thomas takes readers on a journey through the progression of life. Along the way she shares the universal likenesses, experiences, and environments of “Gaia’s creatures,” from amoebas in plant soil to the pets we love, from proud primates to Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers on the African savanna. Fervently rejecting “anthropodenial,” the notion that nonhuman life does not share characteristics with humans, Thomas instead shows that paramecia can learn, plants can communicate, humans aren’t really as special as we think we are—and that it doesn’t take a scientist to marvel at the smallest inhabitants of the natural world and their connections to all living things. A unique voice on anthropology and animal behavior, Thomas challenges scientific convention and the jargon that prevents us all from understanding all living things better. This joyfully written book is a fascinating look at the challenges and behaviors shared by creatures from bacteria to larvae to parasitic fungi, a potted hyacinth to the author herself, and all those in between.
During homecoming at Penn State, the Nittany Lion fans return to enjoy a weekend of Penn State football.
The most famous long-distance hiking trail in North America, the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail—the longest hiking-only footpath in the world—runs along the Appalachian mountain range from Georgia to Maine. Every year about 2,000 individuals attempt to “thru-hike” the entire trail, a feat equivalent to hiking Mount Everest sixteen times. In Walking on the Wild Side, sociologist Kristi M. Fondren traces the stories of forty-six men and women who, for their own personal reasons, set out to conquer America’s most well known, and arguably most social, long-distance hiking trail. In this fascinating in-depth study, Fondren shows how, once out on the trail, this unique subculture of hikers lives mostly in isolation, with their own way of acting, talking, and thinking; their own vocabulary; their own activities and interests; and their own conception of what is significant in life. They tend to be self-disciplined, have an unwavering trust in complete strangers, embrace a life of poverty, and reject modern-day institutions. The volume illuminates the intense social intimacy and bonding that forms among long-distance hikers as they collectively construct a long-distance hiker identity. Fondren describes how long-distance hikers develop a trail persona, underscoring how important a sense of place can be to our identity, and to our sense of who we are. Indeed, the author adds a new dimension to our understanding of the nature of identity in general. Anyone who has hiked—or has ever dreamed of hiking—the Appalachian Trail will find this volume fascinating. Walking on the Wild Side captures a community for whom the trail is a sacred place, a place to which they have become attached, socially, emotionally, and spiritually.