Often times when coaches talk about their players being part of the “family”, their word is as valuable as Nick Saban’s promise to stick it out with a program. The same is even more true when it comes to recruits who haven’t signed their LOI and only as important to a coach until a better prospect is interested.

Evidence of this is overwhelming and rings truer every season (Alabama oversigning by mass quantities only to weed them out like a Rock of Love audition), unless you are Penn State.

Love him or hate him, Joe Paterno is exactly why we fell in love with college sports to begin with. Unlike the NLF, Players are synonymous with one school and one school only (unless you are Justin Boren). Don’t believe me? Even a Packers institution like Brett Farve ended up playing in New York, traded around like baseball cards with no allegiances and loyalty whatsoever.

The recruitment of Brandon Felder is proof yet again why Joe Paterno and Penn State does things right in the face of ballooning salaries and minimal coach loyalties.

During a meaningless scrimmage against Forestville High School last August, Brandon Felder was forced airborne to make a simple catch. One he had done countless times before. Unfortunately, he came down with a defender on his back landing on his right knee awkwardly.

He had a ruptured lateral cruciate ligament and a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament which only meant the worst. He would have to miss his entire senior season.

When I hurt my leg, I was thinking my life was over,” said Felder. “I thought that I couldn’t do anything else besides play football, so I couldn’t do anything. I was real worried.

He watched as his teammates finished a disappointing 6-4 for the year while he underwent surgery in September. For any star player, it was bad enough being injured, but imagine watching the schools that were once begging on his doorstep dwindle by the day without an opportunity to redeem himself.

Fortunately, Felder made the best call of his life verballing early to Penn State before his injury.

Now imagine if Felder had made that very same verbal to a coach like Nick Saban who oversigns recruits just for the pure joy of it. Luckily Larry Johnson immediately let Felder know that Penn State’s scholarship to him would be available no matter what.

“Coach Johnson told me that they were going to stick with me, and even though I was kind of depressed, that really brightened things for me,” recalled Felder. “He said that it was there no matter what happened. He said, ‘you committed to us early, so it showed that you were dedicated to the school,’ so he wasn’t going to take it back.”

Stories like this just makes me beam with pride just to have graduated from Penn State. To stick it out with a kid who didn’t even have the opportunity to play a meaningful down his senior year speaks volumes about how Joe Pa runs his ship. ESPN might want to portray a program run amok, but the opposite is undeniably true.

We Are! …

Releated Posts:

1. Levi Norwood granted release from Penn State
2. Forging on with DeChellis and Curley’s Vision: Tre Burke re-opens his recruitment
3. Shawn Oakman Commits to Penn State
4. The Penn State All-Decade Team: Wide Receivers
5. Penn State takes a lickin’ but stops tickin’ against Ohio State

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