Columns
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A Memorable Celebration of Life for a True Servant Leader
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It was the perfect fall weekend to travel into Happy Valley to get together with friends and family, including my two oldest children, as it was “Family Weekend” at Penn State. The leaves were changing colors, the sun was shining brightly, only a few wispy clouds were in the sky and a cool breeze was…
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PSUPoorman’s Top 10: Intriguing Questions After Penn State’s Loss to Iowa
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IOWA CITY, IOWA — Penn State and Iowa almost always play it close. Five of their last seven games have been decided by six points or less. Including here on Saturday night. So, yes, the final score was pretty par for the course: The Hawkeyes won 25-24, overcoming a 21-10 lead as their quarterback Matt Gronowski…
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The Vibe in Iowa City? Nice, With Sides of ‘I Love When the Circus Comes to Town’ and ‘Penn State Is Going to Obliterate Us’
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IOWA CITY, IOWA — Iowa Nice. After spending parts of Friday inside Kinnick Stadium, walking the massive and bucolic University of Iowa riverside campus, and hanging out downtown, that’s my biggest takeaway in advance of Saturday’s 6 p.m. local/7 p.m. Eastern game between the Hawkeyes and the Nittany Lions. Forgot to feed the parking meter…
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Willie Morse: Hall of Fame Comes Calling for State High Legend
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All sorts of commendations and congratulations will go to each person inducted into the Centre Country Sports Hall of Fame this Sunday. And that is altogether appropriate for these remarkable individuals. But from where I sit, there’s one who merits extra attention. He is William “Willie” Morse, a four-year basketball starter for State College Area…
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Penn State: What Have We Become and What Will We Be?
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“I don’t want Penn State to become the kind of a place where an 8-2 season is a tragedy. You can’t tell kids that a football loss is a tragedy. It’s not.” –Joe Paterno 1971 Given the events of the past two weeks, it’s fair to ask if Penn State has indeed become the kind…
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A Black Panther, a Softball Injury, Artificial Intelligence and Me
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Was it only last year that we profs were policing artificial intelligence as a newfangled form of plagiarism and buying blue books like it was 1975? Now we’re Tokyo train pushers, shoving our classes onto the AI Express lest it leave the station without them. The technology, we’re told, is improving by leaps and bounds,…
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Hook: Reading the Signs
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So… that was a great weekend to get out of town, huh? Granted, we had plans for over a year to attend a wedding on Oct. 11 in western Maine, and only after the Penn State football schedule came out did we know that we would, in fact, be missing a Penn State home football…
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Op-Ed: Recognize, Respect and Respond to Climate Change
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It is dangerous not to respect your opponent. Never underestimate their capabilities. Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told our top officers, “No more climate change worship.” Following on President Trump’s baseless characterization of climate change as a “con job” at the United Nations, we need more voices setting the record straight. This is a gravely serious…
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PSUPoorman’s Top 10: Why James Franklin Was Fired and What’s Next
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And just like that, after 4,293 days and $80 million, James Franklin is gone. He was the Nittany Lions’ head coach in the national title hunt until — poof, in a matter of a mere handful of painstaking, gut-wrenching days — he wasn’t. Franklin came to an unsteady Happy Valley on Jan. 11, 2014 wanting…
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The Question James Franklin Would Not Answer (Hint: It’s About His Future at Penn State)
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Henry Kissinger was a master of the press conference. Penn State head coach James Franklin — who has been through a number of wars himself, the latest being his toughest — is not far behind. Kissinger, the former American diplomat and U.S. Secretary of State, once opened a press conference with, “Does anyone have any questions…