We love Penn State night games on the road, mostly for the pickup basketball opportunities afforded to the beat reporters (most of us now soaring into middle age).<\/p>\n
\nAnd today in the Chicago suburbs — before Penn State’s game against Northwestern — was about as perfect of a day for outside pickup basketball as possible in mid-October.<\/p>\n
\nEspecially here, when the fickle winds off Lake Michigan begin to blow hard and cold.<\/p>\n
\nAnyway, we bought a ball, found a court and convinced Penn State quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno to join us once again.<\/p>\n
\nIt was State College vs. The Rest of the World.<\/p>\n
\nTeam State College featured Paterno, Brian \u201cStretch\u201d Siegrist from Penn State sports information, Nate Bauer from Blue-White Illustrated and Jeff Rice from the Centre Daily Times.<\/p>\n
\nTeam ROTW featured myself, Joe Posnanski from Sport Illustrated, David Jones from the Harrisburg Patriot and Donnie \u201cBig Bear\u201d Collins from The Scranton Times.
\n <\/p>\n
\nWe were being done in by size, youthfulness and fame even before we started.<\/p>\n
\nBut we tried.<\/p>\n
\nPosnanski, who is writing a book about Joe Paterno, nailed a key shot to help win one game. Jones kept firing away from the outside when we were gassed. And Collins kept plugging even with a bad foot.<\/p>\n
\n(Plus, I gave Collins the first nickname he\u2019s ever had).<\/p>\n
\nMeanwhile, I was full of energy and lots of turnovers.<\/p>\n
\nBut I did get Jay to tell the story again about how his Dad tried to guard Bob Cousy when they were in college about a zillion years ago.<\/p>\n
\nJoe was playing for Brown. Cousy was starring for Holy Cross.<\/p>\n
\nOf course, Joe didn\u2019t fare so well.<\/p>\n
\nBut Jay?<\/p>\n
\nHe has all of the instincts and court awareness and a decent turnaround jumper on the baseline, despite some mobility issues.<\/p>\n
\nAnd he cracked some good jokes, comparing his offensive skills to the Lions\u2019 troubles in the in the red zone. He threatened to write about all of us<\/i> at statecollege.com.<\/p>\n
But in the end we succumbed to their size and youthfulness, losing two out of three.<\/p>\n
\nAnd the famous son?<\/p>\n
\nHe hit the final shot of the day to end it. <\/p>\n
\nMore:<\/b> Check out more travel tales — including a Mexican culinary gem<\/a> at an airport — on the Nittany Nation blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We love Penn State night games on the road, mostly for the pickup basketball opportunities afforded to the beat reporters (most of us now soaring into middle age). And today in the Chicago suburbs — before Penn State’s game against Northwestern — was about as perfect of a day for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n