Columns
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After 42 Years, Another Day in Court for Subu Vedam
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Maybe you’ve seen the yellow yard signs around town: “WE’RE FOR INTEGRITY/ #FairTrialFor Subu.” Subu is Subramanyam Vedam, four decades into a life sentence for the murder of his boyhood friend Thomas Kinser in 1980 – a crime Subu says he did not commit. Next Monday, Subu’s lawyers will try to convince Judge Jonathan Grine…
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A Powerful and Transformational Experience
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Picture this: A sold-out conference with 7,000 people in attendance. I’ve been to many of these in my career. This one was at the Ocean Center Convention Center in Daytona Beach, Florida. A lone figure stands on the stage with the crowd cheering approvingly numerous times as he delivers his powerful and transformational remarks. The…
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Beaver Stadium Construction Updates: What Student Gate A and the Super Ribbon South End Scoreboard Look Like
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Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft, we have learned, doesn’t mess around. And neither do the construction crews and cranes operators that were working on Saturday to feverishly finish some early key elements of the multi-year, multi-hundred million dollar renovation of Beaver Stadium. Time is of the essence. While downtown State College and the central…
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State College Little Leaguers Dominate District, Seek Sectional Title
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State College’s 12-and-under Little League All Star baseball players could almost be forgiven if they enter Sectional play next week with a nonchalant attitude. After all, they cruised to four victories on the way to the District 5 title, outscoring their opponents 48-1 and dominating rival Bellefonte 25-1 and 6-0. And as I survey the…
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Analyst Frank Leonard Is Penn State Coach James Franklin’s Ride or Die
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Penn State head coach James Franklin is often seen out and about in town or on campus. Stopping by his favorite Starbucks on West College Avenue (“two venti iced quad sugar-free vanilla lattes with oat milk”), dining with recruits, near-daily walks through downtown State College and along the campus borders. And, seemingly more often than…
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James Franklin’s Pool of Penn State Coaches Just Got Bigger; Why Dan Connor Can Be an LBU Tutor
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James Franklin’s pool of coaches for practice and game day just got bigger, thanks to new rules established by the NCAA. As a result, Penn State staff analysts like former two-time All-American and ex-NFL linebacker Dan Connor — Penn State’s all-time leading tackler — is now eligible to help coach players like Tony Rojas and…
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Don’t Believe Everything You See: Media Literacy Is as Critical as Ever
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Happy anniversary, dear reader. My first column on these pages was published 10 years ago on July 1, 2014, and in the decade since then, I’ve covered many different topics, offered up a little of my personal for-what-its-worth wisdom, and opened up a can of proverbial worms on more than one occasion. An every-other-Tuesday reading…
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Bivens in the Big Leagues: It Just Gets Better
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Wait a second, you may be thinking. Didn’t you write about Spencer Bivens in your last column? I did, but the story of the State College kid who arrived in the Major Leagues after years of wandering in the baseball wilderness keeps getting better. I’ll let San Francisco Giants play-by-play man Dave Fleming summarize Spencer’s…
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A Night of Champions
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Talk about a hat trick for sport watching. Monday, June 24, was an absolutely fantastic night of sports for me. Three — count’em, three — championship games on the same evening. I settled in to watch on my television, laptop and iPhone so I could simultaneously follow all 3 contests. When the evening ended the American Hockey…
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What to Know About Roth IRAs
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When I first started at Nestlerode in 1992, the only option for a qualified retirement account was traditional, tax deductible for money being contributed. Money going into the typical retirement was deducted from taxes and taxes were owed on the distributions in retirement. In 1998, U.S. Sen. Will Roth of Delaware proposed the idea of…