This just in. Penn State Football legend LaVar Arrington is still all about winning in Happy Valley.
“If you live in the past you become a fossil.” Arrington NittanyCentral, of the state of Penn State‘s NIL efforts, during a wide-ranging and lengthy conversation.
He’s absolutely right.
You can’t change the past but you can alter the trajectory of your future if you focus on the goal and not get bogged down with irrational emotions that rear their ugly head in the form of misguided and completely unproductive anger.
If it’s possible, the second overall pick by the Washington Redskins in 2000 is even more active off the field and just as intense about his plight to return the Nittany Lions to the top of the collegiate football mountain as he was when he was timing his leaps on 4th and short snap counts as a player.
If it’s possible, the former two-time All-American linebacker might actually have more jobs than Ryan Seacrest.
Arrington currently works for Fox Sports Radio and IHeart Media. He co-hosts an east coast show that runs five days a week with former Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and a very talented young radio voice in Jonas Knox called Two Pros and a Cup of Jo. That show runs from 6-8 am EST Monday through Friday and then just for good measure he also co-hosts a nationally syndicated radio show every Saturday with former NFL wide receiver royally, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Super Bowl Champion Plaxico Burress.
He also owns a production house that conceptualizes, designs and executes purpose-driven content that aligns with the foundational elements of the companies that his production house represents. And here’s the good news for Nittany Nation.
All of the above has dovetailed into Arrington’s relentless pursuit of helping grow the N.I.L.space at Penn State all the while trying to repair the fracture that still exists with certain boosters and alumni.
LaVar Arrington Hoping to Bridge Gaps to Competing for Championships
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The big fella is on a mission to bridge the gap of his divided alma mater that is hampering P.S.U’s ability to keep up with the blue bloods of the Big Ten Conference from a monetary perspective.
His message to the Nit boosters and fellow alums is a familiar one in Happy Valley. “We Are!” That isn’t just a catchy battle cry Arrington told me the other day. It’s supposed to mean something.
But here’s the reality of the current situation. You have the throwback Joe Paterno supporters who are still angry about how the University handled the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal that became public over a decade ago and left a long lasting tarnish on a program that was seen as pristine and oozed integrity prior to the story becoming a national embarrassment to the program.
In the other corner you have the forward thinking deep-pocketed boosters who aren’t interested in wasting time and emotion in the past. They’re only focused on the ultimate goal.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the situation Arrington is referring to; In the immediate aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky pedophile scandal, back in 2012, the Penn State Board of Trustees hired Former FBI director Louis Freeh and his firm, including a team of former federal prosecutors and FBI agents, to conduct an independent investigation into the scandal.
It was widely speculated that the mission Freeh was given seemed to conclude ahead of the investigation that Sandusky’s crimes were not his alone and that people who had reason to suspect him had looked away, including Head Coach Joe Paterno. After interviewing over 400 people and reviewing voluminous documents, the investigation team reported that Paterno, and several Penn State high ranking executives and administrators concealed Sandusky’s actions in order to protect the publicity surrounding Penn State’s football program.
Freeh’s firm’s investigation concluded that by their actions, the men in question “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.” The report asserted that Paterno and three others in authoritative positions “concealed Sandusky’s activities from the Board of Trustees, the University and the community.
Two weeks following the Freeh report, the NCAA levied some of the most severe sanctions against a program in the history of college football. Penn State was fined $60 million, stripped of 40 total scholarships from 2013 to 2017, banned from postseason play until 2016, and vacated all 112 of its wins dating back to 1998. This included the removal of Paterno’s last 111 wins at Penn State, dropping him from first to 12th on the all-time wins list at the time.
After Paterno’s family along with members in the Penn State community filed a lawsuit against the NCAA the court of common pleas, less than a year later, a settlement was reached and Paterno’s wins were restored.
The controversy over the whole investigation, it is believed by many, is that there was a rush to judgment and the report and sanctions that followed lacked due process.
But the wounds run deep and many of the scars still remain.
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LaVar Arrington All-In on Penn State Football, NIL Efforts
Arrington laments the existing divide between the old school guard of Joe Paterno loyalists and the current regime of modern day Penn State boosters and alumni.
There clearly is anger that still exists because of the way the JoePa faction believes the University handled the situation when they were under public and investigative siege.
“I think that if there was a coming together of our community and listen our slogan is ‘we are’ right?” Arrington says. “So, I”ve been just kind of just banging the drum … I’ve been really trying to bang the drum on trying to get get people to have conversations and to not be so upset or to not be irrational out of emotions but rather to be sensible about what our support, if not unified, could make success very very difficult for Penn State in the near future and and I think that that’s a very real reason in reality.”
Michigan and Ohio State don’t have this problem and with the addition of Oregon to the Big Ten next season, who has the luxury of having the bottomless pockets of Nike creator Phil Knight behind them, the Penn State’s of the world are going to have a problem competing with the Big Ten blue bloods if Penn State continues to be a program divided.
Let’s face it, money talks and everything else walks.
Arrington’s passion for the program while tempering empathy for the Joe supporters in the aftermath of the scandal practically jumped off the screen as he reminisced about his former coach and looked ahead towards his former school’s future.
“Joe became the winningest coach outside of you know coach (Eddie) Robinson at Grambling,” Arrington pointed out. “He became the winningest coach and so to me it altered our history. It altered our history and so I can understand people having hard feelings but at the end of the day it’s our University and this is the reason why I’m so involved and and so very passionate about representing our University at the highest level that I possibly can because I know that that’s what we represent.
“I know we represent a higher level of achievement. I know we represent our communities … and I just wanted to be as much of a voice and and a facilitator as I possibly could be within our community to actually try to get those conversations going and try to get people to actually put selfish agendas aside and and really take a look at how we could all work together to really really push Penn State and Penn State athletics and Penn State football – push it forward and push it forward in a way where we’re actually – imagine we would be being boasted about and being discussed in a way like they did when Joe was the coach, you know, doing it the right way.“
All things being equal, which clearly they’re not, Arrington believes that Penn State has the same foundational elements as the aforementioned teams at the top of the Big Ten food chain. But the solidarity of those schools does not exist currently in Happy Valley.
“I think obviously we had a tremendous setback when everything happened with the scandal,” Arrington says. “And I think it continues to be aan ongoing situation where a lot of people aren’t willing to move on and and and some of those people are very key people I would say in terms of what the growth potential of what Penn State athletics could be and surging forward and eventually becoming that type of institution that Michigan or Ohio state is but there there has to be a coming to terms … Joe is gone and we can honor Joe and we can move forward and the people that have so passionately supported Joe – they’re allowed to support the school. They’re allowed to support our players. They’re allowed to support our coaches.
“If I were taking a guess at it, Joe, I would say coach Paterno would certainly want whoever is leading our school, whether it be the president, the A.D., or the head coach, I certainly would think that he would want our community to as fiercely support all of those elements as they did when he was the the leader and the coach of our team and I don’t think that that has been in my estimation, what the narrative has been and it’s created such a divide in the Penn State Community. So I think that that’s kind of probably a very significant part of why a lot of things are so up in the air in terms of pulling everybody together within the Penn State Community because I truly believe if we could get the people that are from the old guard that have supported Joe the way that they have and wanted change and wanted recognition and understanding and acknowledgment of what Joe was to be just as passionate about getting involved with where the school is trying to go now – I think that that could be a catalyst for the much needed support going in a tremendously positive direction.”
Arrington was affable, thoughtful and very engaging in the nearly 90 minutes he spent with me.
His son, LaVar II and his twin sister will both be attending Penn State in 2025.
LaVar II recently committed to James Franklin’s program and like his All-American dad, is also a linebacker and get this – his twin sister will be on the sidelines cheering for her brother as a Penn State cheerleader beginning in 2025. His youngest of five children, his nine year old daughter, he named Penn, after his alma mater.
If there is a bigger ambassador out there of what ‘We Are‘ represents I’d say you’re delusional. LaVar Arrington embodies everything you would want in a champion of the Penn State program.
“When you talk about somebody who truly loves the institution that they went to,” Arrington says. “And really has a grasp and understanding on what we represent, I believe I’m that person and I also understand a lot of things within the N.I.L. space and within the political space of our school where I feel like I can be the one that helps facilitate and connect and bring people together that may have not have come together if it hadn’t been forcertain circumstances.
“So, I’m just hoping and praying that that’s what it is because to me I think we all would agree that we want to see our school be elite.”
MORE: James Franklin’s Impassioned NIL Pitch
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It was at PRISM where Staszak produced live games and began his career as an on-air reporter.
After a couple of brief stints with CBS-3, WB-17 and WGAL-8 in Lancaster, PA, Staszak began a 12 year stretch at FOX 29 where he became the lead sportscaster in 2007. It was there that Staszak found himself in the middle of Philadelphia Phillies World Series Championship coverage that earned him an Emmy nomination for best sports reporter in 2008.It was one of five Emmy nominations that Staszak earned over the course of his career.
All told Staszak covered three World Series, two Stanley Cup Finals, an NBA Finals and one Super Bowl during his television run.
Staszak left the TV business for 97.5 The Fanatic in 2013, where he enjoyed eight years bloviating his beliefs on how a professional football team should be run.In 2018 when he fortunate enough to be the first sports talk host in the city, along with cohort Zach Gelb, to provide post-game coverage of the first Super Bowl Championship for the city’s beloved Philadelphia Eagles.
Staszak was also a writer for 97.5 The Fanatic along with 4 Philly Sports and now covers Penn State athletics for NittanyCentral.com.
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