By Chris Buchignani
In a cynical era of division and rancor, as unbridled greed hollows out the sport of college football, a bright ray of hope briefly lanced through the layers of dark clouds. It took shape in a moment of unscripted expression from Penn State’s interim head coach Terry Smith.
Asked during the Monday press conference following his first victory against Michigan State whether anyone had reached out to congratulate him on the win, Smith caught everyone off-guard (himself included, most likely) with a tearfully emotional reflection on the outpouring of support from friends, family, and fellow Penn Staters, which then morphed into a broader, and once-again tearful, meditation on what it means to him to be head coach at his alma mater. We all watched as he pondered the life’s journey that brought him to that podium with a cracking voice and unbidden tears in his eyes.
“I apologize. It’s just humbling to sit in this seat. I don’t think anything has made me and my family happier than this opportunity. I have the opportunity to be the head coach at Penn State. This place is special; it’s amazing. I just want to give back to it. It taught our entire family about possibilities in life, and you can be whatever you want to be.”
Immediately, the clip went viral, traveling first from phone to phone between Penn Staters, and then eventually escaping captivity to brush against even the national consciousness. The miracles of modern technology allowed all of Nittany Nation, across State College and around the world, to share the experience of hearing Terry Smith’s words and feeling the power of his emotions practically in real-time, but in the substance of his message, with all its spontaneity and fervor, Coach Smith cut sharply against the impermanence and sterility of the smartphone era – at Penn State, throughout college football, and in our country. We were starved for what that clip offered.
He talked to us about ideas that carry depth, consequence, and a sense of timelessness: He spoke with reverence and humility about an institution that gave his father a path to escape the artificial constraints of circumstance. What it meant to him to lead young men as he himself was once led, at that very same University, occupying the position once held by his former mentor. Now a father of two alumni himself and a father figure to a team of future fellow Lettermen, he spoke from the gut about what it means to be part of a place, and the impact of it all overcame him. You couldn’t watch or listen without feeling something.
Our days have descended into a blur of shallowness and sameness, an unending half-waking state of doomscrolling and drudgery, and so a few moments of depth, of real human authenticity and affection, felt like having a bucket of water dumped on our heads – shocking at first, but then refreshing.
For anyone with even a modicum of perceptiveness, the difference in Penn State’s play over the last few weeks has been obvious. Through some frustrating defeats and, finally, the catharsis of victory, these Nittany Lions are now playing with both a crispness of purpose and a careless abandon not seen from the Blue and White in some time. Charged with keeping a group of young men raised to think of themselves less as parts of a whole than as mercenary commodities duty-bound to maximize their dollar value from flying apart at the seams, Terry Smith has doubled down on high expectations, unwavering accountability, and embracing the radical sentiment that playing football is supposed to be fun. Smith has frequently described Penn State’s current state of chaos as a storm. The results on the field are proof that those few precious minutes of a Monday afternoon press conference accurately reflect the way he is leading his players through it with love.
In all likelihood, this was all a passing fancy. Just a fleeting interruption in the unending onslaught of commercialism and pessimism, as we systematically strip-mine meaning from every aspect of our lives in the name of equity and optimization – the road to Hell is paved with good intentions – and before you know it, we will be back to reality, cataloging the stars who are opting out of bowl games or jumping into the transfer portal.
But what if it wasn’t? What if we treated it like an unlooked-for lesson that nevertheless landed at the exact time when it was needed most? What if, like his players daring to embrace the dangerous notion that football could be more than a job, and their lives more than an executed string of commands, we took a cue from Terry Smith, a leader who has met the moment, a Penn Stater leading Penn State, and chose love? Not for a minute, or a day, but as a North Star guiding our institution and community into its next chapter.
I can’t sit here today and predict that will happen, and I question whether it even actually could. I don’t know if Terry Smith could or should be our next head coach, but maybe, if nothing else, he is showing the way to a future that truly transcends the transactional. Let’s all indulge our imagination. What if?
In his earnest and spontaneous expression of emotion, Terry taught us about what it means to genuinely care for something, to feel it to the depths of your soul, and, especially, he showed what it is to love Penn State, more than all the disposable tweets, short-form videos, and long-form essays in all the world could ever do. Why? Because it was real and raw, from the heart and of the moment. We are living through days when everything (even our “intelligence”) feels more artificial and scripted than at any point in human history, so when we are confronted with an example of genuine human spirit, it hits like a thunderclap.
So, what does that mean for us? Was that feeling we all felt, whenever and however we watched that clip, little more than a temporary respite from the inevitable daily doldrums, or could history instead remember it as a timely call to arms inspiring a community to cast aside the shackles of conventional wisdom and instead place an audacious bet on love? Ponder, for a moment, the possibility that Terry Smith’s message was in fact a blueprint for escaping cynicism’s stranglehold and winning through embracing your own uniqueness.
Were the revelations of these past few days simply a welcome port in the storm, or did that flash of lightning in fact illuminate an alternative, an off-ramp we are free to choose if only we can find within ourselves the wisdom and the courage to take it?
Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Podcast and The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show, entering its 10th season this Fall. He teaches a course on Penn State Football History for Penn State OLLI.
