It seems like everybody associated with Penn State Athletics is on a mission these days.
There are two wrestlers on religious missions who will not compete this season.
There’s a football coach on a mission to add a few more victories before the season ends.
There’s a women’s basketball coach on a mission to make her once-proud program relevant.
And there’s a whole cadre of people from the athletic department, along with consultants and partners, working to make as much money as possible.
The good thing is they’re all focused on the task at hand — so there’s no mission creep — but some of those four missions may be a lot easier to accomplish than others.
Mat Mission
First, the wrestlers: Will Henckel and Cole Mirasola. Henckel, a silver medalist at the U20 worlds and a potential 174-pounder, and Mirasola, who went 19-8 at heavyweight last season, are both taking this season off to complete religious missions.
Coach Cael Sanderson discussed them as strong men of faith during his preseason news conference, and there’s no reason to doubt his word. At the same time, most wrestling insiders and even casual, know-it-all fans saw the move a little more clearly.
It’s an eligibility loophole. No injury redshirt available? No problem. No Olympic redshirt options? No worries. Take a religious mission.
Kudos to Penn State for finding a way to balance opportunities on its big, talented wrestling roster but there will be two likely results. Either the faith-filled world of wrestling will become even more faithful with wrestlers on powerhouse teams completing their own mission trips regularly or the NCAA will close the loophole before the craziness becomes standard practice.
Matt’s Mission
For Matt Campbell and the football team, three games remain — Minnesota on Saturday, Rutgers on Nov. 21 and a regular season-ending game at Maryland on Nov. 28. Three victories would get the coach’s initial season to 8-5, a more-than-respectable result after a midseason search for identity and productivity.
What’s great about Campbell is that so far, he’s mostly just a coach focused on his job. A good coach, too. On this bigger stage, he’ll figure out aggressiveness and clock management and at some point he’ll simply not care what others think (not that he does now).
He’s just a thoughtful guy, a mission-focused guy. He’s neither worried about being a voice of the sport nor curious about what’s next besides putting the humans he’s leading in a position to succeed. That kind of focus helps lead to mission success.
The team’s progress this season, thanks to Campbell’s steady approach, has set what seems to be a solid foundation for the future. It’s not been easy — clearly not as easy as many on the outside envisioned — but he knows what needs done and seems more poised to accomplish it now than he did a month ago.
Maddening Mission
The most success-challenged of the three missions is the one related to women’s basketball.
The Lady Lions have started 0-3 under first-year coach Tanisha Wright and the former program standout (a three-time All-Big Ten selection and a three-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year) and proven professional (14 years as a WNBA player and five more as a coach in the league) may endure more losses than any of the six other coaches in Penn State history this season.
Penn State has started a women’s basketball season 0-3 three other times: 2004-05, 1979-80 and 1973. It has never lost the first four games at the start of a season.
Next up for the Lady Lions is a road game Sunday against Arizona State, which fell just outside this week’s AP Top 25. So, after losses to Cleveland State, Cincinnati and Dayton — none of which are ranked — things do not get easier.
There will be nothing easy about this season for Wright and the Lady Lions. Along with trying to win on the court, they’re working to rebuild a fanbase that’s lost a great deal to attrition and maybe never caught the interest of others.
In the past 25 years, no Penn State program has fallen as much as women’s basketball. A Women’s Final Four appearance in 1999-2000 was clearly the program’s high point. Some good years followed, but then things trended down and while there were 20-win upticks and NCAA Tournament appearances under Coquese Washington, the fanbase never really rallied around the program as it did in the early 2000s.
Women’s basketball revival is clearly a difficult long-term mission — though one worth pursuing.
Monetary Mission
OK, maybe this could be the hardest mission to accomplish. It’s the most important by far though.
As Penn State Athletics works to complete the Beaver Stadium renovation, to conduct thousands of football season ticket renewals and to comb every possible opportunity to monetize everything related to its 31 varsity sports – or at least the handful that make money — the number of challenges and variables is immense.
The department needs money. Always. Every day. For typical expenses and upkeep to technology upgrades and the ever-increasing costs associated with paying players in every sport.
Top-tier programs moved right past the supposed $20.5 million compensation cap for all programs that went into effect two years ago. These days, that’s a lowball cap for any college’s football team alone, including Penn State’s.
Plus, all Big Ten Conference members are eyeing a 2029 timeline to make sure their football programs are as nationally competitive as possible. It’s important because that’s when negotiations for another TV contract for the conference should be underway, and stronger teams mean a stronger bargaining position.
And that’s just income necessary for football. If Penn State wants to compete for championships in all its sports, it needs to invest. It has partners to help with that mission, along with sizable administrative, fundraising and marketing teams in-house.
Whatever number gets tossed out as a goal almost invariably seems like not enough in a matter of weeks, so the complexity of the mission keeps changing — and its importance keeps increasing.
It’s not at all mission impossible. It’s simply a necessary mission.
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