I turn 30 later this month.
I feel like some people freak out about milestone ages that end with a zero once they hit 30 and I’ve never really understood that. I’m not anxious to turn 30. I don’t think it will inherently feel any different than 29.
I was however recently served a healthy reminder that my age is going to increase into a new decade soon from an announcement last week.
Paul Posluszny is headed to the College Football Hall of Fame – the first Penn Stater to play in the 2000s to earn such an honor.
And yeah, OK, that one did make me feel a little bit old. But I’m OK with that. It is after all fitting that he’s the first Penn Stater of my formative years to enter the College Football Hall of Fame. And I have to feel a lot of other Penn State fans my age – or thereabout – feel the same way.
Because for a lot of 90s-born Penn Staters like myself, Posluszny was our first great Penn State football player that we got to watch, idolize and now feel (slightly) old about the fact he’s going into a Hall of Fame.
A big part of Penn State fandom when started at an early age – and I have to imagine this is the same for other fan bases – is that you’re told stories of yesteryear a lot.
Like a lot.
And Penn Staters, myself included, love nothing more than nostalgia. But for much of my life – or until the invention of YouTube – it was only relatively spoken word on just how fierce Jack Ham was. Or just how good Shane Conlan was.
We never quite got to see it.
Even with LaVar Arrington, who played while I was alive but only whom I have fleeting memories of as I was born in 1994, there wasn’t quite a Penn Stater that was someone who my generation could call “ours.” There wasn’t a player that signified meaningful Penn State football that I could and can actually recall. You also have to remember that by the time I could really start remembering Penn State football, it wasn’t particularly chalked full of winning the way our parents and grandparents got to experience it.
And then came “Poz.”
Particularly with that 2005 team, it’s still one of the best years of Penn State fandom in my lifetime. I finally got to see, 11 years in, what winning in State College truly looked like in my life. Much of that centered around the one player we all wanted to emulate in the backyard.
That’s right: Michael Robinson.
OK, it’s kind of hard to replicate what a linebacker does in intense two-hand touch matchups at recess compared to a quarterback.
But if Robinson was the player we all wanted to play like, Posluszny was in many ways the player we all should have been – and probably were — thanking at the time.
He wasn’t just good. He was great. He was what we were told of that our parents saw from “Jack,” he made an impact on the field like “Lydell” and he carried himself much in the way like “Cappy” as a leader.
“Poz” became our first one-name player at Penn State for those who were born into this fandom in the middle part of the 90s.
He was the first real taste of Linebacker U. success that I can really remember, neck roll and all.
His No. 31 jersey was the first I remember buying (or, well, begging my mom to buy for me) – complete with an Orange Bowl patch – back when Family Clothesline and other downtown stores sold player jerseys before the days of NIL. That jersey, until very recently, hung on my childhood bedroom’s wall – complete with a signature from – you guessed it – Derrick Williams.
(For whatever reason, a young Darian decided it was a good idea to have him sign it at the Blue-White pregame autograph session. No offense to D-Wheels, but I don’t know what young Darian was thinking.)
Still, in many ways Posluszny represents the first era of true success in Happy Valley in my lifetime that I can actually remember. He represented the turn from the Dark Years into promise and celebration that being a Penn State fan wasn’t just about losing. I mean, even if he did get hurt in that Orange Bowl, he’s a big reason I got to stay up past my bedtime in 2006 on a school night to see that memorable win.
The 2005 season kicked off my generation’s first real taste of fun Penn State football fandom. And sure, to some varying degrees that are hotly debated in Facebook comment sections and message board postings, we’re experiencing some of that success again in Happy Valley while others are searching for the last days of the 1980s.
But man, there’s something special about that nostalgic feeling a player like Posluszny can evoke. Because for me, he represents a time in my life as a Penn State fan that brought a smile much in the way Trace McSorley and Sean Clifford have done recently. There will be other players — maybe even Drew Allar and Abdul Carter — that will bring first fond memories for other generations.
They, however, will not be rooted to childhood memories and formative years in fandom. No, that’s all in the hands of one player: now College Football Hall of Famer Paul Posluszny.
If you’ve enjoyed this content, please consider supporting StuffSomersSays.com by clicking this link.
