Penn State a site to behold

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Shoot an arrow at a map of Pennsylvania, and the bull's-eye is State College.

"They built the college here first in 1855, and the town grew around it," said Penn State coach Mark Pavlik, whose men's volleyball team plays host to Hawai'i tomorrow in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships. "The college is the driving force of State College."

Indeed, the town appears to have been designed from the mind of Joe Student. On nearly every block of downtown College Avenue, there is a bookstore, copier shop, fast-food restaurant or bar.

Twenty-five fraternity and sorority houses bracket the town. The local Hooters restaurant has a sign offering, "Beers to Go." Two blocks down, on Atherton, there is a wedding store.

"Everything you want is within a 15-minute drive," Pavlik said. "You have the mountains. There are a couple of lakes nearby. You have this campus of 40,000 students, but you drive five minutes and you can be by yourself. You walk 10 minutes and you can be by yourself."

State College is not for the homebody. "It's a great college town," Pavlik said. "It stays young and it keeps you young."

The life force is athletics. In particular, football rules, and its coach, Joe Paterno, is the Nittany Lion king. His image adorns book covers, T-shirts and, even, "Joe Pa-sta." The PSU Sports Museum sells grass seeds similar to the ones planted at Beaver Stadium.

Pavlik said Paterno is supportive of all PSU athletic teams. "He realizes we're all part of the Penn State family," Pavlik said.

As the paternal figure, Paterno has set the campus-wide standard. Instead of being overshadowed by football, the other sports believe "success is expected," Pavlik said. "We're not looking for the spotlight. We're looking to do what is expected of any Penn State team."

Pavlik's volleyball program has contributed to one of Penn State's 56 NCAA team titles, winning the final four in 1994. It was a remarkable achievement in a sport in which the power is weighted heavily to the West.

Still, for all of the Nittany Lions' success — trophies fill the three bookcases in Pavlik's office — the expected popularity of the sport never materialized.

"We've been saying for years and years that if we win, volleyball will grow in our part of the country," Pavlik said. "We won in 1994, and nothing really happened. I don't get caught up in that anymore. People much smarter than I am can debate the issue.

"Are we proud of being the flagship volleyball program of the East Coast? Yes. Do I wish that if, for some chance we win this whole thing, that three weeks later the ACC or Big Ten will add men's volleyball programs? Of course. But it hasn't happened. I'm not going to kid myself into believing we're going to make a huge, huge difference."

Instead, Penn State, like UH, has been criticized for recruiting international players. To which, Pavlik said, "When the Penn State chemistry department closes its doors to international students and when I get a directive from our president that we're going to be U.S.-based only, we'll change.

"But in this day and age, we're living in a global community, and volleyball is one of the most global sports. People will say, 'You're taking away scholarships from U.S. players.' That's kind of like saying, 'quit sneezing,' when you have a cold. The real crux of the problem is why aren't more schools offering men's volleyball if there's a need out there not being met?"

For now, Pavlik said the Nittany Lions will focus on serving as a role model at the grassroots level. Since 1933, Pennsylvania has had a sanctioned high school volleyball championship, the longest such streak in the nation.

"There is a very passionate, very educated volleyball community within Pennsylvania that has been fostered for 70 years," Pavlik said. "I think it means a lot to them. It's their group we feel very proud to represent."